The Parousia : a critical study of the Scripture doctrines of Christ's second coming, his reign as king, the resurrection of the dead, and the general judgment

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THE

PAROUSIA:

A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINES OF CHRIST'S

SECOND COMING ; HIS REIGN AS KING ; THE

RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD ; AND

THE GENERAL JUDGMENT.

— duvdixetq [isXXovTO(; alcbvo^. — Heb. 6: 5.

BY

ISRAEL p. WARREN, D.-D.

w

"Theologically, the way has been prepared for an entire revision
of the domain of Eschatology."— Hagenbach, Hist, of Doct.,11 p. 522.

"Let no man, taking the credit of a sobriety and moderation ill
applied, think or maintain that men can search too far in the Book of
God's "Word; but rather, let them excite themselves to the search, and
boldly let them advance in the pursuit of an endless progress in it:
only taking heed lest they apply their knowledge to arrogance and
not to charity, to ostentation and not to use." — Lord Bacon.

PUBLISHED BY

HOYT, FOGG & DONHAM,
Portland, Me.

Copyright, 1879,
BY ISRAEL P. WARREN.

Wm. M. Marks, Printer,

PREFACE

It is with the utmost diffidence that I give this book to the
public. The peculiar nature of the subject, the wide diversity
of opinions concerning it among Christians, and the oft-ex-
pressed sentiment that any one who pretends to much confi-
dence as to what the Scriptures design to teach us in relation
to it betrays a lack of mental sobriety, if not of sanity, might
well deter men of far greater professional ability than myself
from anything so rash. But having, after many years of study
begun under the most painful perplexities, attained certain
views of the subject which afford great satisfaction to my own
mind, I cannot resist the feeling that others similarly perplexed
may possibly be equally relieved by a statement of those views
and the grounds on which they are based. That feeling has
been much strengthened by the favor with which some articles
on the Parousia published a year or two ago in the Christiait
MiKROR were received, and the very frequent requests since
made that they might be printed in a more permanent form.

I am not vain enough to expect that all, perhaps not even
many, will accept the views here set forth. Some will reject
them outright, without investigation. Many others will stand
in doubt, or more actively oppose them, because in a few re-
spects— matters of form and costume chiefly — they differ some-
what from the more commonly accepted views. Still, I venture
to crave a candid hearing from all, and an unprejudiced com-
parison of the positions taken with the Scriptures, "whether
these things are so." And if there be a seeming of presumption
in venturing to publish any views on such a subject, let this be
my apology, that God has taken many ages and used many
builders in rearing up the edifice of Christian truth, and though
all may not be master builders, yet each one, even the humblest,
may bring his brick, which the great Proprietor will find a place
for.

One or two remarks I maybe permitted to make as to the prin-
ciples of interpretation which have guided me in this inquiry.

The first is to have primary regard to the ideas and modes of
speaking current among the Jews in Christ's day. Says Prof.
Stuart, in his Letters to Channing, "Nothing is clearer to my
apprehension than that God, when he speaks to men, speaks in
language which is used by those whom headdresses." Having for

101826

IV PREFACE.

fifteen hundred years been trained under the expectation of a
coming Messiah and of what he would do for them and the
world, their language concerning him had to a considerable
extent become technical and special. Of course, our Lord and
his apostles conformed to the usage of their countrymen, and
"we can know their meaning only by making ourselves for the
time being one with them. It is the violation of this principle,
T cannot doubt, which has led to most of the confusion apper-
taining to the common views of eschatology. What sort of
knowledge would be gained of our own times by writers living
two thousand years hence who should utterly ignore our pecul-
iar theories and phrases in politics, philosophy and religion,
and persist in interpreting them according to the ideas that
should prevail at that time ?

Further than this, I have not believed that any peculiar
modes of interpretation were requisite. I have never seen any
reason why the Bible should not be read precisely like any
other book, — I mean, of course, if there be only a reverent
recognition of its Divine origin, and a deep spiritual sympathy
with its sacred themes. Its meaning is that of its words, in
their plain historico-grammatical sense modified only by the
figures of speech common to all languages, and the local
Jewish usage above referred to. All peculiar theories of
symbolism, and type, and double sense, and the like, which
seem contrived to fit the Scriptures to opinions already formed
rather than to be safe guides to their formation, lam obliged to
regard as both unwarranted and mischievous.

With this, it has seemed to me, there should be joined
a reasonable degree of hermeneutical independence. Protes-
tants, at least, believe not only in the right but the duty of pri-
vate judgment. While fully recognizing the claims of authority,
and deferring, as is most proper, to the opinions of scholars,
and especially to the statements of venerable creeds and formu-
laries, I cannot forget that these have not, in fact, been infal-
lible guides, but that notwithstanding them doubt, diversity,
and distrust still envelope the whole field of eschatology. Is
there not a better guide for a simple inquirer after truth to be
found under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit in the con-
victions of plain common sense, — the syneidesis of every man,
to which the great apostle strove to commend himself and his
teachings in the sight of God ?

I shall welcome from every source whatever light will serve
to correct any error into which I may have fallen, and give to
the church a deeper and more fruitful knowledge of the Divine
teachings as to the coming and kingdom of our Lord.

PoBTLAND, January, 1879.

CONTENTS

PilEFACE,

Page iii.

PAKT I.

THE PAEOUSIA.

Chap. I. The Term and its Signification, 9

Chap. II. The N'ature of the Parousia, 17

Chap. III. The Time of the Parousia, 25

Section 1. Testimony of Christ, 25

1. Its precise date not disclosed, 25

2. But very near, 26
Section 2. Testimony of the four Disciples, 31
Section 3. Testimony of Paul, 34
Section 4. The testimony weighed, 41

_ 1. Eemoteness never asserted, 42

The language simple, 43

How understood by those who heard it, 48

How understood by the primitive churches, 51

The logical requirements of the language, 58

Section 5. Objections to this view, 55

1. The Parousia did not in fact occur, 55

The physical phenomena did not occur, 58

The resurrection and judgment did not occur, 58

A visible coming did not occur, 61

The Man of Sin was not revealed, 65

The Scope of the Parousia, 73

The Costume of the Parousia, 80

The Imagery of Inauguration, " 80

The Imagery of Destruction, 89

2.

4.

5.

Chap. IV.

Chap. Y.

Section 1.

Section 2.

Yl CONTENTS.

PART II.

CHRIST AS KING.

The general view, 100

Chap. I. Christ's Accession to the throne, 103

Chap. II. His coming in his kingdom, 106

Chap. III. The Kingdom like a grain of mustard seed, 112

Chap. IY. Persecution, 116

Section 1. By Judaism, 121

Section 2. By Paganism, . 125

Section 3. The Binding of Satan, 127

Section 4. GrOg and Magog, 137

Section 5. Resurrection of the Martyrs, 143

Section 6. Judgment of the Dead, 153

Chap. Y. The agfe of Conquest, 159

Growth the law of progress, 161

1. Affirmed by Christ, 161

2. Confirmed by History, 162

3. Illustrated by Geology, 163
The several Stages of Progress, 165

1. Christianity is to become universal, 165

2. Christianity is to become the sole religion, 166

3. Christianity is to be greatly intensified, 167

4. Christianity is to pervade all forces, 169
Chap. YL The Consummation, 171
Chap, YII. The Perpetuity of Christ's Kingdom, 176

1. Declared to be without end, 179

2. Given to Christ as his reward, 183

3. Given to him as his inheritance, 184

4. Is the reward of his saints, 184

5. Implied in his eternal priesthood, " 185

6. Further change denied, 185
Chap. YIII. The End of the World— 2 Peter 3: 3—13, 188

1. This language not scientific, 192

2. No annihilation of the universe, 193

3. Will not cease to be the abode of man, 194

4. Refers to the Jewish aion, or dispensation, 199

1. It was to pass away, 199

2. With a great noise, 199

3. With grand physical phenomena, 200

4. Was for the time "reserved," 200

CONTENTS.

Mi

5. Was to occur at the Parousia,

6. Was to be expected and watched for,

7. The elements were to be dissolved,

8. Identical with Rev. 6 : 12-17,

9. The teachings of Reason and Science,
Chap. IX. The New Jerusalem,

1. Was expected soon,

2. Correspondence with O. T. prophecies,

3. Relations to the rest of the world,

4. The wicked remaining outside,

PART III.

CHKIST AS LIFE-GIVER.

Chap. I. The Anastasis,

Section 1. The testimony of science.
Section 2. The testimony of the Scriptures,

1. The three-fold nature of man,

2. Relation between soul and spirit,

3. The psychical man,

4. Examination of 1 Cor. 15 : 35-53,
Section 3. Relation to regeneration,
Section 4. The time of the resurrection,

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Chap. II.

Section 1.
Section 2.

Evidence from man's constitution,

Evidence from his immortality,

Evidence from the nature of a resurrection.

Evidence from the nature of Christ's office,

Christ's declaration to Martha,

Analogy of the germinating seed,

Christ's reply to the Sadducees,

The Transfiguration,

The promise of being with Christ,

Expectation of the early Christians,

Rom. 8: 18-25,

2 Cor. 4: 14—5: 10,

Relation to the Parousia,
The Prepared Place,
Rising of the Dead in Christ,

Section 3. The change of the Living,

1. They do not all sleep,

2. They are changed instantaneously,

200
201
201
202
203
207
209
210
211
213

217
219
227
227
228
228
229
233
233
238
289
241
242
243
243
245
248
249
250
251
252
255
255
258
263
264
265

Vlll CONTENTS.

3. They are caught up into the air, 266

4. Are with the risen dead, 265

5. Both events are at the Parousia, 267
Contrast with the traditional view, 267

Chap. III. The Kesurrection Life, 273

1. Probable preservation of the human form, 273

2. Probable preservation of the features, 274

3. Conditions of society realized, 275

4. Present relationships continued, 275

5. The heavenly world near to us, 277

6. Yet higher than the present, 278

PART ly.

CHEIST THE JUDGE.

General Statement, 281

Section 1. Costume of the Judgment, 282

Section 2. The Time of the Judgment, 284

Objections to the common view, 285

1. Evidence from the nature of Christ's Office, 286

2. Evidence from the nature of man, 287

3. Evidence from the nature of probation, 288

4. Evidence from the language of Scripture, 288
Section 3. The Awards of the Judgment, 295
Future Punishment, 295

CONCLUSION.

Summary of the doctrine, 297

1. Neither a praeterist nor a futurist view, 298

2. It harmonizes the words of Scripture, 298

3. It conserves all essential truths, 301

4. It imparts to them increased meaning, 302

APPENDIX.

aebhardt on the "Coming," 304

Dollinger on the Man of Sin, 304

Grotius on Gog and Magog, 311

PART I.

THE PAROUSIA

CHAPTER I.

THE TERM AND ITS SIGNIFICATION.

The term employed in the New Testament to de-
note the second coming of our Lord is, in the original,
The Pakousia. "What shall be the sign of thy
Parousiaf' Matt. 24: 3. "So also shall be the
Parousia of the Son of Man." Matt. 24 : 27, 37, 39.
It will be our first endeavor to ascertain its exact
meaning.

How the word came to be used in this special
application is not known. I am not aware that the
Jews had ever been accustomed to apply it to the ap-
pearance of the expected Messiah. It is found but
twice in the Septuagint (2 Mace. 8 : 12 ; 15 : 21), and
there only in its ordinary secular meaning. In the
New Testament, it first occurs in this inquiry of the
four disciples on the Mount of Olives. They had
now become in a degree familiar with the idea that
their Lord was about to leave them for a time and af-
terwards return, and that he would then set up the
2

10 THE PAROUSIA.

kingdom they were looking for, and reward therein
his faithful friends who had followed him unto death.
Matt. 16 : 27, 28. Their conceptions were indeed
very imperfect, but such as they were, they awoke in
them the highest expectation, and prompted to un-
seemly rivalries for the foremost place in its honors.
Contrasting, then, that eagerly expected period with
the brief duration of his present stay with them, they
seem to have fondly named it The Presence^ as im-
plying that he would thereafter permanently remain
with them, and admit them into an intimacy of inter-
course and of relations surpassing all they had before
enjoyed.

It matters little, however, in what way the word
came to be used by the disciples in this sense, for it
was immediately sanctioned and confirmed by Christ
himself. Thrice does he employ it in the same sense,
in the discourse that follows. Like the lightning
which fills the whole heaven with its splendor, and
like the deluge which surprised the old world in the
midst of its business and its pleasures, " so likewise,"
he declares, "shall be the Parousia of the Son of
man."

The signification of the word is the Being with^ or
the Presence. It is derived from the compound verb
Trdpei/ui^ from napd with, and £i/u to be. Instances
of the use of this verb in the New Testament are the
following : " There were present at that season some
that told him of the Galileans." Luke 13 : 1. — Cer-
tain Jews who ought to have been here before thee."
Acts 24: 19. — " I verily * * have judged already as

THE TEBM AND SIGNIFICATION. 11

though I were present,'''' 1 Cor. 5 : 3. — " I beseech
you that I may not be bold when I am present^^ etc.
2 Cor. 10 : 2. — " I told you before, and foretell you as
if I were present the second time." 2 Cor. 13 : 2. —
" I desire to he present with you and to change my
voice." Gal. 4: 20. — The word paronsia is twice
translated presence in our version. " His bodily
presence is weak." 2 Cor. 10 : 10. — As ye have always
obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much
more in my absence. Phil. 2 : 12. — If the translators
had been uniform in their renderings, they would used
the same word in the following instances. "I am
glad of the coming (the presence^ of Stephanas
and Fortunatus and Achaicus." 1 Cor. 16 : 17.
" God * * comforted us by the coming (^presence} of
Titus ; and not by his coming (^presence') only." 2
Cor. 7 : 6-7. " That our rejoicing may be more
abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you
again " (by my presence again with you). Phil. 1 : 26.
The only remaining instances of its use in the New
Testament are the following, in all which it refers to
what is called Christ's second coming. "Christ the
first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his
coming" (in his Presence}. 1 Cor. 15 : 23. — "What
is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not
even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at
his coming" (before our Lord Jesus Christ in his
Presence}. 1 Thess. 2: 19. — "At the coming (in the
Presence} of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his
saints." 1 Thess. 3: 13. — "We which are alive and
remain unto the coming (the Presence} of the Lord.

12 THE PAROUSIA.

1 Thess 4 : 15. — Preserved blameless unto the coming
(the Presence') of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess.
5 : 23. — " Now we beseech you, brethren, by the com-
ing (the Presence') of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2
Thess. 2 : 1. — " And shall destroy with the brightness
of his coming" (his Presence). 2 Thess. 2: 8. — "Be
patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming (the
Presence) of the Lord. The coming (^Presence) of
the Lord draweth nigh." Jas. 5 : 7, 8. — " We made
known to you the power and coming (^Presence) of
our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Pet. 1 : 16.—" Where is
the promise of his coming?" (^Presence). 2 Pet. 3 : 4.
— "Looking for and hasting [unto] the coming
(^Presence) of the day of the Lord." 2 Pet. 3 : 12.—
" We may have confidence and not be ashamed before
him at his coming " (in his Presence). 1 John 2 : 28.
It is important to observe that in all the instances
thus cited the word is accompanied in the original by
the article the^ which in Greek is distinctive and em-
phatic,— implying that it is, in some sense, a special
and unique presence, to be distinguished from all
others. Accordingly, we find that the term is never
applied to his first advent, when he dwelt among men
in the flesh. That was indeed a coming to men, a so-
journ with them, but it is never called The Parousia.
Nor is the word " second " ever joined to it, as if im-
plying that there was a first. We often speak of the
" second advent," the " second coming," etc., but the
Scriptures never speak of a "second Parousia."
Whatever was to be its nature, it was something pe-
culiar, having never occurred before, and being never

THE TERM AND SIGNIFICATION. 13

to occur again. It was to be a presence differing
from and superior to all other manifestations of him-
self to men, so that its designation should properly
stand by itself, without any qualifying epithet other
than the article, — The Pkesence.*

*This view of the meaning of the word is sustained by the
most eminent scholars.

"Parousia; properly, the being or hecoming present: i. e. (a)
presence. 2 Cor. 10: 10 — (b) a coming, advent, — etc." — Lexicon,
sub voce. — Dr. Bobinson.

'* Here again our translation misleads. Parousia means not
coming ; it means presence, being present, as is plain by refer-
ring to its root, pareimi, I am present. The taking of all these
things so as to be seen is of itself complete proof of the
presence (not ocularly visible presence, but presence in the
scriptural sense) of Christ." Bib. Sac. Yol. xi. p. 455.— Pro/.
M. Stuart.

"The word Parousia (presence) is the ordinary expression
for the second coming of the Lord. — With the classic authors
parousia commonly signifies presence; it has the same meaning
sometimes in the N". T., in the writings of Paul (2 Cor. 10: 10;
Phil. 1 : 26 ; 2 : 12 ; 2 Thess. 2:9); in other cases it is used in the
sense of advent, and once (2 Pet. 1 : 16) the incarnation of the
Kedeemer as applied to his first coming." Yol. ii. p. 228. —
Olshausen.

" Not the brightness of his coming, as very many commenta-
tors, and the English version, but the mere outburst of his
presence shall bring the adversary to naught." Compare 2
Thess. 2:8.— Alford.

" The inquiry involves three questions. 1. When shall these
(things) be, and what the sign when they shall happen? 2. And
what the sign of thy presence f " Com. Matt. 24 : 3. — Dr. Hales,
quoted approvingly by Bloomjield.

" Porro quaerunt, quodnam presentiae Christi futurum esse
signum?" (They ask what shall be the sign of Christ's
presence?) Com. Matt. 24: 3. — BosenmuUer.

" As Christ's first sojourn with humanity was also an appear-
ing, the future manifestation is often distinguished as his ' glo-

14 THE PAROUSIA.

From this view of the word it is evident, I think,
that neither the English word "coming" nor the
Latin " advent " is the best representative of the
original. They do not conform to its etymology;
they do not correspond to the idea of the verb from
which it is derived ; nor could they appropriately be
substituted for the more exact word, '' presence," in
the cases where the translators used the latter. Nor is
the radical idea of them the same. " Coming " and
"advent" give most prominently the conception of
an approach to us, motion toward us ; " parousia " that
of being with us, without reference to how it began.
The force of the former ends with the arrival ; that of
the latter begins with it. Those are words of motion ;
this of rest. The space of time covered by the action
of the former is limited, it may be momentary ; that
of the latter unlimited, — continuance that may be

rious! appearing, in contrast to the state of humiliation in
which he first came to earth ; or its permanence is empliasized in
contrast with the shortness of his former visitation, for the
word translated coming in the text just cited properly signifies
presence." Hist. Ch. Theology, p. 190. — Dr. Beuss, Prof, in the
Protestant Theo. Seminary in Strasburg.

" Jesus described this judgment on Jerusalem in the symbolic
language of prophecy as connected with his (invisible) presence,
and bade his disciples await his coming and recognize it in that

event. His presence, which he called in prophetic language a

coming on the clouds of heaven, would consist in the manifes-
tation of his divine interposition in human affairs as the

exalted protector of his church. This wicked one Christ will

destroy, etc., — i. e., he will execute judgment on this man of
sin as he will also on Jerusalem ; both alike will be the effect of
his presence (parousia)." — First Age. Yol. II. pp. 71, 96. — Dr.
Dollinger, Prof, of Eccl. History in the University of Munich.

THE TERM AND SIGNIFICATION. 15

eternal. So in respect to place ; a coming implies an
arrival at some locality ; a presence may be universal,
"wherever two or three are met." The promise of
the Lord's coming to men, therefore, is not the same
thing as a promise of his presence with them. The
one implies nothing more, necessarily, than a single
manifestation, a visit however short ; the other implies
a stay with them, relations of permanence ; not the
performance of a single act, but rather a dispensation
including within it many acts, and covering a long
period of duration, possibly eternal.

It may be thought that I make more of this dis-
tinction than is needful, but I am persuaded otherwise.
Had our translators done with this technical word
" parousia" as they did with "baptisma," — transferring
it unchanged, — or if translated using its exact etymo-
logical equivalent, presence^ and had it been well
understood, as it then would have been, that there is
no such thing as a " second Presence," I believe that
the entire doctrine would have been different from
what it now is. The phrases, " second advent," and
" second coming," would never have been heard of.
The church would have been taught to speak of The
Pbesence of the Lord, as that from which its
hopes were to be realized, whether in the near future
or at the remotest period, — that under which the
world was to be made new, a resurrection both spirit-
ual and corporeal should be attained, and justice and
everlasting awards administered. There would have
been no difficulty in conceiving that that Presence be-
gan to be near at the time when in the primitive age

16 THE PABOUSIA.

it was expected, in that existing generation, and would
continue long enough for everything to happen under
it which prophecy connects with it. And even now,
if we could get rid of the limiting and localizing
ideas implied in a coming, and substitute for them the
universal and eternal possibilities of a presence, I
believe that nine-tenths of the difficulties attending the
subject would disappear, and we should easily return
to those simple views which made the Parousia to the
apostles and primitive churches a perpetual spring of
activity and hope and holy joy.

But we are anticipating. There are other terms
which are not unfrequently applied in the New
Testament to the same event, but not in the same
distinctive way as the one we have considered. Such
are djiox61u(pL(i, translated revelation in 1 Pet. 1 : 13 ;
appearing in 1 Pet. 1:7; coming in 1 Cor. 1 : 7 : —
imipdvEta, rendered appearing in 1 Tim. 6: 14; 2
Tim. 1 : 10 ; 4 : 1, 8 ; Titus 2: 13 ; and brightness in 2
Thess. 2 : 8 : — iXeuacQ, translated coming in Acts 7 :
52. It is not necessary to dwell upon either of these,
for they are used only incidentally and in an ordinary
way which throws no special light upon the nature of
the event itself. The great diversity of signification
given them by the translators shows that they saw
nothing technical or distinctive in them.

CHAPTER II.

THE NATUKE OF THE PAKOUSIA.

The work of salvation is represented in the Scrip-
tures,— doubtless in condescension to our human
conceptions, — as having been the object of consulta-
tion and covenant between the Persons of the Trinity,
before the creation of the world. The Divine Logos,
or Son, is said to have offered himself for it^ perform-
ance, consenting to the temporary relinquishment of
his divine honors, and to the humiliations and suffer-
ings involved in taking a human nature, living a hu-
man life, and dying an ignominious and most painful
death, thereby making an atonement for sin which
would render pardon possible. This offer the Father,
as the representative of eternal law and justice, is said
to have accepted, and in return for it to have given the
world thus redeemed to the Son, to be in a peculiar
sense his own, to be possessed, governed, and disposed
of by him for its own salvation and the manifestation
of his glory. " Therefore will I divide him a portion
with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto
death." Isa. 53 : 12. " I will give thee the heathen
(the nations) for thine inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession." Ps. 2: 8.
" There was given him dominion, and glory, and a

17

18 TRE PAE0U8IA.

kingdom, that all people, nations and languages
should serve him." Dan. 7 : 14. " We see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the angels, for the
suffering of death crowned with glory and honor."
Heb. 2: 9. "Who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God." Heb.
12 : 2. " Who being in the form of God, thought it
not robbery to be equal with God* but made himself
of no reputation (Gr. kaurbu ixiucoasu, emptied him-
self)^ and took upon him the form of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of men ; and being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore also God hath highly exalted him, and
given him a name (i. e. a rank or dignity) which is
above every name," etc. Phil. 2: 6-11. See also
Matt. 11 : 27 ; 28 : 18; John 3 : 35 ; 5 : 27 ; 1 Cor. 15:
25-28 ; Eph. 1 : 20-23.

This dignity — called often by a single term, his
" glory," — involved several functions which we usually
consider as distinct. In our day we divide govern-
ment into three departments, the legislative, judicial,
and executive, but this is a device unknown in early
times and absolute monarchies. The Hebrew kings
sat on their thrones in the gates of their cities, and
" executed judgment and justice " for their people.
2 Sam. 8 : 15 ; 15 : 2 ; 1 Kings 3:9; Isa. 32 : 1. In
the Old Testament, God is everywhere styled both

a More exactly, "thought not his being equal with God a
thing to be held fast." Alford translates it, "deemed not his
equality with God a matter for grasping."

THE NATURE OF THE PAB0U8IA. 19

King and Judge, and the records of his will are
termed interchangeably his laws, his statutes, and his
judgments. " The verbs," says Hengstenberg, "which
signify to judge^ in the Shemitish languages have for
the most part the secondary meaning to reign, because
in ancient times both functions were usually confined
to one person."^ Thus Christ the King^ according to
Scripture usage, signifies also Christ the Judge^ the
two supreme offices being conjointly and inseparably
exercised by him in his administration over this
world. See also Isa. 11 : 4, 5 ; 42 : 4 ; John 5 : 22,
26, 27 ; Matt. 25 : 31-46.

In addition to these and transcending all the func-
tions of an earthly monarch, our Lord in his kingdom
was to have the prerogative of giving life to the dead.
His kingdom was to extend over a realm of moral
death — a domain of souls " dead in trespasses and
sins." Their entrance into it was to be by a new
birth, called variously a " re-generation," a " new cre-
ation," a '^ resurrection from the dead," etc. John 1 :
12, 13 ; 3:3; Rom. 6 : 4-11 ; Eph. 2 : 5. This new
life should pervade the whole nature of man, the
physical as well as spiritual. Redemption was to be
co-extensive with the fall ; the resurrection the com-
plement of regeneration. "I am," said Christ, "the
Resurrection and the life." John 11 : 25. When his
work of grace should be completed, man would stand
restored in all the elements of his nature, " delivered
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious lib-
erty of the children of God." Rom. 8 : 21.

«^ Christology of the O. T., I. p. 295.

20 • THE PAR0U8IA.

The supreme dignity of our glorified Lord, then,
was to involve the threefold offices of King, Life-giver,
and Judge. Their administration, further, was to be
unique in this, that they were to be a government of
grace, having in it the special provision of pardon for
the guilty, which feature we designate by the term
mediatroial, — accomplishing thus what else would be
impossible, the harmonizing of equity with pardon,
enabling God to " be just and the justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus."

This recital of the familiar truths involved in the
revealed Plan of Redemption will, if I mistake not,
lead us to the true idea of the Parousia. It is the
presence of Christ in this world in the exercise of his
mediatorial offices. In this view, it is the complement
and the contrast of the first advent, when he came in
the flesh. It is for the completion of the work which
he then began. It is for the harvesting of the seed
then sown. Matt. 13 : 37-43. The former, according
to the nature of its work, was temporary f this is to be
permanent. That was associated with memories of
sorrow, humiliation, and death ; this with the promise
of perpetuity, and glory, and blessedness. The one was
a day of "visitation" to men (Luke 19 : 44); the other
of " abode " with them. John 14 : 23. What better
term for such an abode could be devised than one
which includes all the ideas of grace and joy involved

a The phrase in Heb. 2: 7, 9, "made a little lower than
the angels," should undoubtedly read "made lower than the
angels for a little while.'' Most authorities agree in this, though
Alford dissents. See his note on the passage.

THE NATURE OF THE PAROUSIA. 21

in the exercise of liis great offices, the Parouaia^ — a
blessed and eternal Presence with them ?

This Presence, it may be remarked further, I under-
stand to be a literal one. The expression " Christ's
literal presence, or coming " is often taken as meaning
nothing less than a material and visible one, so that
the denial of such a coming is thought to be a rejection
of the doctrine of his literal coming. This is wholly
unwarranted. It might as well be said that to deny
that God is a material and visible being is to deny his
literal existence. The Parousia is a literal presence,
as truly as when Christ says, "Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I'm. the midst
of them." It is not a figurative one, not one existing
constructively or as an object of thought, but a true,
actual presence, as real, though not under the same
conditions, as when he was here in the flesh.

It is also d^ personal presence. The same unwarran-
ted restriction of meaning is often given to this phrase,
as if Christ could not be personally present unless
subject to the senses of sight and touch. How often
after his resurrection did he render himself invisible
to his disciples while he was with them. By a personal
presence I mean that Christ is here himself in propria
persona^ not merely by the official work of the Spirit,
nor by any representative whatever.

Whether, in point of fact, that Presence ever will
be a visible one with a visible initiation or " coming "
and an external sensuous kingdom, is, at this stage
of the discussion, premature tg inquire. What I have
said is sufficient to show that that question is not one

22 THE PABOUSIA.

that at all involves its essential nature, the time of its
occurrence, or the purposes for which it was ap-
pointed.

The view we have thus gained of the nature of the
Parousia suggests to us also what is meant by Christ's
coming. For though, as already remarked, this noun,
iXeuac(;^ (coming) is used but once in the N. T. (Acts
7 : 52), and that not in reference to his second coming,
yet the verb to come {sp-^oum^ rjxco) is very frequently
employed in that signification. But we are to remem-
ber that this is the coming of a divine heing^ who al-
ready possesses omnipresence, and cannot therefore
be said to come and go in the same sense as when
applied to finite creatures. It is an instance of that
anthropomorphism which is every where used in the
Scriptures, and without which it would be impossible
to form any conception of God or of his acts.

That omnipresence, as a personal attribute, belongs
to Christ will not be questioned by any who believe
in his deity. Even when dwelling among men in his
flesh he could say, "Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Nay, he directly affirmed that at the same moment
when he was visibly present, talking with those about
him, he was also in heaven. " No man hath ascended
up to heaven but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of man, who is in heaven." John 3 : 13.
Much more, then, may it be affirmed that in his glori-
fied state he possesses this prerogative of deity, and
can no more come in the sense of a literal approach
than he can depart, leaving some portion of the uni-
verse empty of his divine essence.

THE NATURE OF THE PABOUSIA. 23

The only conceivable sense, then, in which Christ,
in his divine offices of King, Life-giver, and Judge, can
come to men, is that of manifestation. God came
down on Mt. Sinai when the phenomena of the cloud,
the thunder, and the earthquake appeared there which
manifested his presence. " In Scripture language,"
says Stuart, " God comes whenever he proceeds to do
or execute any purpose of his will in respect to man.

But we are never authorized to suppose an actual

and visible coming^ except by symbols. God is always
and everywhere present, and cannot come and go in
the literal sense." Bib. Sac. IX. p. 340-1. See Gen. 11 :
5 ; 18 : 21 ; Ex. 3 : 8 ; Numb. 12 : 5 ; 22 : 9 ; Ps. 68 :
7 ; Isa. 64 : 3. So says John, " Christ came by water
and blood" (1 John 5:6); that is, he was manifested
as a Saviour to men by the water and blood which is-
sued from his heart when pierced by the soldier's
spear.*

a " Christ said to the Jewish rulers, at his condemnation, that
hereafter they would see the Son of man come in the fullness
of his divine power. Thus his presence, which he called in
prophetic language ' a coming on the clouds of heaven,' would
consist in the manifestation of his divine interposition in human
affairs, as the exalted Protector of his church. This they
would behold, of course, only with the eye of faith, for he had
already told them they would then first see or recognize him
when they acknowledged and honored him as Messiah." — Dol-
linger. First Age of the Church, Vol. II. p. 71.

*' Christ is said to come whenever he makes manifest his glory
as King of the Kingdom of God, in enhanced splendor before
the eyes of all. This he did, in its initial stage, during his life
on earth, but yet much more after his exaltation to heaven, in
the destruction of Jerusalem, for example, in the fall of heath-
endom, and in the reformation of the church ; and it is the task

24 THE PAROUSIA.

It follows from this that, while we are permitted to
conceive and to speak of but one Parousia of Christ,
there may be man^ comings. These are to be re-
garded as specific events under a generic dispensation.
Several are so designated in the Scriptures, and many
more might equally well be. Among them were the
Spirit's work on the day of pentecost, the judgment
upon Ananias and Sapphira, the conversion of Saul,
the various deliverances of the apostles from prison,
the overthrow of Jerusalem, the destruction of the
man of sin, the conversion of Constantine, etc., and
generally, the happy death of believers, the conquests
in the work of missions, revivals, etc.^

of an exact exegesis to determine with regard to every place in
the N. T. (where this is demanded) in what sense precisely
there a coming of the Lord is spoken of." — Van Oosterzee, Yol.
II. p. 578.

* In this view, it was exactly in the spirit of the old Hebrew
diction that Mrs. Howe, in her " Battle Hymn of the Republic,"
referring to the uprising of the nation to put down rebellion
and slavery, wrote :

'^ Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are

stored.
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword ;

His truth is marching on.

"I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling

camps ;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and

damps ;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps ;
His day is marching on."

CHAPTER III.

THE TIME OF THE PAKOUSIA.

SECTION I.
TESTIMONY OF CHKIST.

The first of the inquiries addressed by the disciples
to our Lord on the Mount of Olives, respecting his
promised Parousia was as to the time of its occurrence,
"TeU us when shall these things be ?" Matt. 24 : 3.
His answer is very full and explicit. Indeed, it may
be said that on no subject whatever is the language of
the New Testament more abundant or more decisive.

1. Its precise date was not to be revealed, nay was
unknown even to himself. "Of that day and that
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Mark 13 :
32. The exact moment was not among the things com-
mitted to him to be disclosed to men. While here in
the flesh, his own divine attributes of omniscience
and almighty power which, as the eternal Son of God,
he had equally with the Father, were in a state of abey-
ance. He had "emptied himself" (Greek, ixipojcrsp^
Phil. 2:7.) and taken the form of a servant, — acting
and speaking in that state of humiliation only through
the Spirit (Matt. 12: 28; Acts 1 : 2; Heb. 9: 14),
as it was given to him by his Father. John 3 : 34 ;
5: 19,30; 8: 28 ; 12 : 49.

25

26 THE PAROUSIA.

But this language should not be pressed to convey
a meaning not warranted by it. It is very often cited
as showing that nothing was intended to be known as
to the time, and therefore as reproving all those who
repeat the inquiry of the apostles. Dr. Hodge refer-
ring to it says, " Neither the early Christians nor the
apostles knew when the second advent of Christ was
to take place." Com. on Rom. 13 : 11. And Dean
Alford: "The time of his own coming was hidden
from all created beings, nay, in the mystery of his
mediatorial office, from the Son himself." I submit
that this is altogether too sweeping an assertion. In
the very verse next preceding he had told the disciples
when it should be with sufficient definiteness for all
practical purposes, — sufficient to incite them to watch-
fulness and preparation for it ; and he here only fore-
stalls an idle curiosity as to the exact day and hour^
which, if disclosed, would tend to interfere with the
duties of that time. In a similar manner, after his
resurrection, he refused to answer their inquiry whether
the time had arrived in which he would restore the
kingdom to Israel, saying, "It is not for you to
know the times and seasons" * — i. e. the precise
dates, "which the Father hath put in his own power."
Acts 2 : 7.

2. But though the exact day and hour were not to
be stated, he still assures them that the event was very
near. This declaration was made in many ways, and

a "As Meyer observes, kairos (translated seasons) is always
a definite, limited space of time, and involves the idea of tran-
sitoriness." Alford. See also Tittman's N. T. Synonymes.

THE TIME OF THE PABOUSIA. 27

repeated with emphasis, and many solemn admonitions
that it should be remembered and watched for, making
it one of the most certain and impressive teachings in
the New Testament.

The very first public utterance that he made, after
entering upon his ministry of preaching, was to repeat
the announcement of his forerunner, John, in the wil-
derness, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matt.
4 : 17. The coming of that kingdom was the same
thing as the coming of its king. So when giving his
twelve apostles their commission, he says, " As ye go,
preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"
Matt. 10: 7. He adds, (ver. 23) "Verily I say unto
you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till
the Son of man be come."

Matt. 16 : 27, 28. "The Son of man shall come in
the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he
shall reward every man according to his works. Verily,
I say unto you, There be some standing here which
shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man
coming in his kingdom." In the corresponding passage
in Mark it is, " till they have seen the kingdom of God
come with power." And in Luke, "till they see the
kingdom of God." It has been maintained by some
that this prediction was fulfilled in the transfiguration,
which occurred six days afterward. But this is a most
unnatural explanation. The purpose of it was to
comfort his disciples under his announcement that he
was about to be put to death, and their expectations
of honor and place in his kingdom to be disappointed ;
— that they must deny themselves and take up the

28 THE PAROUS I A.

cross, as he had done, and be willing to lose life itself
if they would preserve it. Yet he would not have
them discouraged, for their Lord would, after his
death, speedily return in the glory of his new kingdom,
which would thenceforth be established in power. He
would then be invested with the office of administering
judgment and reward, and would repay his faithful
servants for all they had done and suffered for his sake.
Such is the manifest import of this grand promise,
vrith which nothing can be more incongruous than the
idea that they should be permitted merely to witness
a change in his personal appearance, which would con-
tinue but an hour or two, and which they must be
careful not to tell of. How absurd to call this a re-
warding of every man according to his works ! Besides,
it seems little short of trifling to pretend that our
Lord should so solemnly, and with the formula of
weightiest emphasis, declare that there were some
among all the persons standing about him who would
not die within a week 1^

*"Tliis declaration refers in its full meaning, certainly
not to the transfiguration which follows, for that could in no
sense (except that of being a foretaste; cf. Peter's own allusion
to it. 2 Pet. 1 : 17. where he evidently treats it as such) be named
the Son of man coming in his kingdom ; and the expression
'Some of them shall not taste of death' indicates a distant event,
— but to the destruction of Jerusalem and the full manifestation
of the kingdom of Christ by the annihilation of the Jewish
polity." Alford.

"It has reference to a gradual or progressive change, the in-
stitution of Christ's kingdom in the hearts of men and in society
at large, of which protracted process the two salient points are
the effusion of the Spirit on the day of pentecost and the de-
struction of Jerusalem more than a quarter of a century later."
Alexander.

TUB TIME OF THE PAEOUSIA. 29

John 21 : 21, 22. "Peter seeing him saith to Jesus,
Lord, and what shall this man do ? Jesus saith unto
him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to
thee?" This is not, indeed, an express declaration
that John should live till the time of his coming, but
that meaning is implied in it.* The other apostles
so understood it, and the prediction in this sense was
verified, John, according to the testimony of all an-
tiquity, having survived the destruction of Jerusalem.
Euseb. Eccl. Hist. iii. 23.

Matt. 24 : 34. "This generation shall not pass till
all these things be fulfilled." It has been said that
the word "generation" does not necessarily denote a
period equivalent to the average duration of those
living at one time, but that it sometimes signifies a race
or hind ; so that the meaning here may be that, not-
withstanding the threatened overthrow of the nation,
the Jewish race should survive and continue till the
end of time. But this is foreign to the whole scope
of the passage. The topic under consideration was
the time of the Parousia. Jesus likens it to the near
approach of the summer after the budding of the
spring, and immediately adds the words before us, as
if to reiterate the idea in the strongest terms. Besides,
though the English word, generation, may sometimes
have the sense claimed, there is no instance in the New
Testament of such use of the original word, yeved. It

a "The words must be accepted as expressing not merely
what he could do, but what he intended to do." Archbishop
Trench, Studies, p. 189.

30 THE PAROUSIA.

occurs forty-two times, and invariably in its ordinary
sense of the men of this age, or those now living.^
Z^ Matt. 26 ; 6f . "Hereafter" (Gr. from this time)

"shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand

of power and coming in the clouds of heaven."

Luke 22 : 69. "Hereafter" (Gr. from now) "shall the
Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of
God." In these passages the qualifying phrases of
time are very explicit, not signifying, as the English
"hereafter," some indefinite period in the future, but
one commencing at that very moment ; — immediately,
forthwith.

^ " Not withstanding the dissent of some, the phrase can
only mean ' this very generation,' ' the race of men now living.' "
Bloomfield.

"Ejus setatis homines." Rosenmuller.

'*It is neither more nor less than equivalent to our mode of
expression when we say, ' There are those now born who will
live to see these things fulfilled.' " Bobinson. Bib. Sac.

" 'Not,' says De Wette, ' this generation of the Jews, not this
generation of the apostles (Paulus), but exclusively, the genera-
tion of men now living.' His explanation is doubtless correct.' '
Stuart, Bib. Sac. IX. p. 455.

"Unless we forge a meaning for the word in this place which
is not only unexampled elsewhere, but directly contradictory to
its essential meaning everywhere, we must understand our
Lord as saying that the contemporary race or generation, i. e.
those then living, should not pass away till all these prophecies
should be accomplished." J. A. Alexander.

"We can understand nothing else by 'this generation' than
the contemporaries of Jesus and his disciples." Keil.

"This generation of living men." Geikie.

"Genea (generation) is not used in the sense of nation in any
one passage, either in the New Testament or of profane writers."
Olshausen.

"The generation of persons then living with Christ." Ben-
ham in Bib. Cyc.

THE TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 31

John 16 : 16. "A little while and ye shall not see
me, and again a little while and ye shall see me ; because
I go unto the Father." This and similar phrases in
the discourse can only have one import, as Alford
terms it, "the great Revisitation in all its blessed
progress."

These declarations of our Lord were accompanied
by the most solemn warnings to his disciples to be con-
tinually prepared and watching for his coming, for it
would take place suddenly and, to those not thus watch-
ing, unexpectedly. Matt. 24 : 42-45 ; Mark 13 : 33 ;
Luke 21 : 34-36. Of like import are the parables of
the servant left in charge of a household (Matt. 24 :
45-51); of the ten virgins (Matt. 25 : 1-13); and of
the talents (Matt. 25 : 14-29). It seems to us little
else than mockery to address such admonitions to those
who, upon the theory that the Parousia is still future,
would have gone to their graves at least twenty cen-
turies before the prediction would be accomplished.

SECTION n.
TESTIMONY OF THE FOUR DISCIPLES.

Such were the teachings of the Master himself. If
now we turn to the apostles whom he commissioned
to complete the sacred volume, we find as one of the
most conspicuous facts that they had understood him
as affirming the near approach of the Parousia ; that
they frequently spoke of it, and derived from it their
most constant incitements to fidelity, and their most
precious consolations and hopes.

Three of those who inquired concerning it on the

32 THE PAROUSIA.

Mount of Olives were James, Peter, and John, and
these, with Jude, are the only ones of the twelve whose
words have been preserved to us in writing. A simple
citation of their language will strikingly illustrate
how habitually and how fondly they recurred to the
subject.

JAMES.

Jas. 5 : 7, 8, 9. " Be patient therefore, brethren,
unto the coming (Parousia) of the Lord. Behold
the husbandman waiteth, etc. ; be ye also patient,
for the coming (Parousia) of the Lord draweth nigh.
Behold the Judge standeth before the door."

PETER.

1 Pet. 1:5. " Who are kept by the power of God
unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time,"
(about to be disclosed).

1 Pet. 1:7. " That the trial of your faith— might
be found unto praise and honor and glory at the ap-
pearing (d,Tcox(ihj>pcc:^ of Jesus Christ."

1 Pet. 1 : 13. " Be sober, and hope to the end for
the grace that is to be brought unto you." (Alford
says the original " expresses the near impending of
the event spoken of ; q. d. ; ' which is even now bear-
ing down on you.' ") at the appearing (d;raxa/y^rc)
of Jesus Christ."

1 Pet. 4:5. " Who shall give account to him that
is ready to judge the quick and the dead."

1 Pet. 4:7. " But the end of all things is at hand;
be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer."

1 Pet. 4 : 13. " That when his glory shall be re-

THE TIME OF THE PABOUSIA. 33

vealed (Gr. in the apocalypsis of his glory) ye may be
glad also with exceeding joy."

1 Pet. 4 : IT. " For the time is come that judg-
ment must begin at the house of God." (Gr. it is
the time of the beginning of the judgment).

1 Pet. 5:1. "A partaker of the glory that shall
be (Gr. is about to be) revealed."

1 Pet. 5:4. " And when the chief Shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth
not away."

2 Pet. 1 : 16. " We made known to you the power
and coming (Parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Pet. 3: 10-12. "The day of the Lord wiU

come as a thief in the night Seeing then that all

these things shall be dissolved, what manner of per-
sons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and
godliness, looking for and hasting [unto] the coming
(Parousia) of the day of God," etc.

JOHN.

1 John 2:18. " It is the last time." Alford says,
" Verse 28 shows that it is the coming of the Lord
which is before the mind of the apostle."

1 John 2 : 28. " Abide in him, that when he shall
appear we may have confidence, and not be ashamed
before him at his coming." (Gr. in his Parousia).

1 John 3:2. We know that when he shall appear
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Rev. 1:13. " Things which must shortly come to
pass. The time is at hand."

Rev. 2 : 5, 16. " I will come unto thee quickly."

3

34 THE PAROUSIA.

^ Rev. 2 : ^5. " Hold fast till I come."

Rev. 3: 3, 20. "I will come on thee as a thief.

Behold I stand at the door."

Rev. 22 : 12. Behold I come quickly, and my re-
ward is with me."

JUDB.

Verse. 14. " Enoch prophesied saying, The
Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints." Vs.
24. " Unto him that is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless before the presence of his
glory," etc.

SECTION III.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL.

In citing the abundant testimony of this great
apostle, who, though not with the others who heard
our Lord's words on the Mount of Olives, yet received
the gospel which he preached by direct revelation
(Gal. 1 : 12), we begin with the earliest of his
epistles, — 1 Thessalonians, — which should be read in
connection with Acts 17 : 1-10, as showing the
circumstances attending the founding of the Thessa-
lonian church. The great theme of his preaching
there had been the speedy coming of Christ to estab-
lish his kingdom among men. This appears from the
complaint made by his enemies to the Roman author-
ities, that he and his followers were turning the world
upside down — " saying that there is another King —
one Jesus." With this agrees his own statement, — 1
Thess. 1: 9, 10. "Macedonia and Achaia * * shew

THE TIME OF THE PAR0U8IA. 35

of US what manner of entering in we had unto you,
and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the liv-
ing and true God, and to wait for Ms Son from
heaven.'" That Jesus was the appointed King of men
and that he was about to come from heaven to assume
his throne are plainly the leading topics thus indica-
ted. We do not wonder that with backs yet bleeding
from the scourging they had suffered at Philippi,
Paul and his companion Silas should have taught
thus. They made Christ's own words in Matt. 16 :
24-28 their text, and their preaching, as he says, and
as it well might be from an eloquence so fired and so
illustrated, "was in power, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in much assurance." Ch. 1: 5. From the seed
sown in that three weeks' ministry sprang up a church
whose faith and zeal won from him the most honora-
ble commendation, and was, as he assures them,
known and certified to throughout all Greece. Ch.
1: 8.^

With this key-note of his preaching harmonize all
the allusions to the same subject with which the two
epistles to this church abound.

1 Thess. 2: 19. "What is our hope, or joy, or
crown of rejoicing ? Are not even ye in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?" (his
Parousia).

*"The great burden of his message to them was the ap-
proaching coming and kingdom of the Lord Jesus." — Alford.
"If we were asked for the distinguishing characteristic of the
first Christians of Thessalonica, we should point to their over-
whelming sense of the nearness of the second advent." —
Howson. Life and Epp. I. p. 327.

36 THE PAROUSIA.

1 Thess. 3 : 13. " To the end he may stablish your
hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our
Father, at the coming (Parousia) of our Lord Jesus
Christ with all his saints."

1 Thess. 4 : 15. " We which are alive and remain
unto the coming (Parousia) of the Lord."^

1 Thess. 4 : 17. " Then we which are alive and re-
main shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds," etc.^

1 Thess. 5:2. " Yourselves know perfectly that
the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the
night."

1 Thess. 5: 23. "I pray God your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming (Parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Thess. 1:7. " And to you who are troubled rest

a "Then beyond question he himself expected to be alive,
together with the majority of those to whom he was writing,
at the Lord's coming." — Alford. This author styles the usual
explanation that by "we, the living," is meant "such as
should be alive at that day," an evasion, and insists that in the
word we, " Paul includes his readers and himself. That this
was his expectation we know from other passages, especially

from 2 Cor. 5: 1-10." " Certainly the proceeding of the older

interpreters who thought Paul spoke in the plural only conver-
sationally, without really meaning to say that they themselves,
he and his readers, might be still living at the occurrence of
that catastrophe, is decidedly to be rejected." — Olshausen.

''Here Paul evidently reckons himself among those of
whom he considers it possible, and a thing to be desired and
hoped for, that they may live to witness the advent. The
strange evasions by means of which the fathers and others
sought to make out that Paul nevertheless is not speaking of
himself, are justly set aside by Lunemann." — Auberlen, in
Lange's Com.

THE TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 37

with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from
heaven," etc. (Gr. in the apocalypsis of the Lord
Jesus from heaven).

2 Thess. 2 : 1-12. This passage, so often quoted to
disprove the speedy coming of Christ, will receive
distinct notice hereafter.

2 Thess. 3:5. " The Lord direct your hearts into
the love of God, and into the patient waiting for
Christ."

The other epistles of Paul we note in their usual
order.

Rom. 8 : 18. " The sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which
shall be revealed in us." (Gr. is about to be re-
vealed).

Rom. 13: 11-12. "And that knowing the time,
that now it is high time to awake out of sleep ; for
now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
The night is far spent ; the day is at hand."*

1 Cor. 1 : 7-8. " Ye come behind in no gift, wait-
ing for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be

* " A fair exegesis of this passage can hardly fail to recog-
nize the fact that the apostle here as well as elsewhere (1 Thess.
4: 17; 1 Cor. 15: 51), speaks of the coming of the Lord as
rapidly approaching." — Alford. "Most modern German com-
mentators defend this reference. Olshausen, DeWette, Philippi,
Meyer, and others, think no other view in the least tenable ;
and Dr. Lange, while careful to guard against extreme theories
on this point, denies the reference to eternal blessedness, and
admits that the Parousia is intended. The opinion gains
ground among Anglo-Saxon exegetes." — Middle, in Lange' s
Com.

38 THE PAROUSIA.

blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The
meaning is that the Corinthians were not inferior to
any other church in their ardent and waiting expec-
tation of the approaching Parousia.**

1 Cor. 3 : 13. " Every man's work shall be made
manifeJit ; for the day shall declare it, because it shall
be revealed by fire." Literally, " It — the day- — is be-
ing manifested in fire." The verb is in the present
tense, as if denoting an event now in progress or just
about to occur.

1 Cor. 4:5. " Therefore judge nothing before the
time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to
light the things of darkness, and will make manifest
the counsels of the hearts." An apparent allusion to
the work of the Revealer predicted in Malachi 3 : 2-5.

1 Cor. 5:5. " Deliver such a one unto Satan for
the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be
saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."

1 Cor. 7 : 29. " But this I say, brethren, the time
is short ; it remaineth," etc.^

1 Cor. 11 : 26. " For as often as ye eat this bread

*"It may be asked, Were the Corinthians looking for
Christ's second advent as an event likely to occur in their day,
and which some of them might be expected to witness ? This
question must be answered in the affirmative." — Poor, in
Lange's Com.

♦'Alford translates this, "The time that remains is short,
— literally the ' time is shortened henceforth ' ; i. e. the interval
between now and the coming of the Lord has arrived at an ex-
tremely contracted period." — "The 'time' is not to be taken
for the earthly lifetime of individuals ; the context rather points
to the period of time from thence onward until the second ad-
vent."— Kling, in Lange's Com.

TllJi: TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 39

and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till
he come." This passage is relied upon by many as
showing that the Parousia is still future, else our
practice of observing the Supper should cease. This
will be considered hereafter.*

1 Cor. 15: 23. Christ the first fruits; afterward
they that are Christ's at his coming." (Gr. in his
Parousia).

1 Cor. 15 : 51, 52. " We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall
sound," etc.^

1 Cor. 16 : 22. " If any man love not the Lord Je-
sus Christ let him be anathema. Maran atha." i. e.
the Lord cometh.*^

8^ "The showing forth is addressed directly to the Corin-
thians, not to them and all succeeding Christians ; the apostle
regarding the coming of the Lord as near at hand, in his own
time. " — A Iford.

^"We all, viz., as in 1 Thess. 4: 15, who are alive and re-
main unto the Parousia of the Lord, in which number the
apostle firmly believed that he himself should be." — Alford.
"To take the term 'we' as a sort of generalization by which
he did not intend literally to denote himself and his contempo-
raries, but only those living at the time of the advent, and who
belonged to an entirely different period, and so, as equivalent
to ' we Christians,' i. e. those who shall then be alive, is entire-
ly arbitrary. It is unquestionable that the apostle, although
opposed to all fanciful expectations and designations of time,
regarded the second advent as near, and hoped to survive it."
— Kling.

cThe thought, 'The Lord comes!' is calculated to
heighten the force of the preceding thought ; Be ye quickly con-
verted, for the time of decision is near at hand!" — Olshausen.

40 THE PAROUSIA.

Phil. 1:6. " He which hath begun a good work in
you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."^

Phil. 2: 16. "That I may rejoice in the day of
Christ that I have not run in vain, neither labored in
vain."

Phil. 3 : 20. " Our conversation is in heaven, from
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ."^

Phil. 4:5. " Let your moderation be known unto
all men. The Lord is at hand."

Col. 3:4. " When Christ, who is our life, shall ap-
pear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

1 Tim. 6 : 14. " Keep this commandment without
spot, unrebukeable until the appearing (epiphaneia)
of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Tim. 4: 1. "I charge thee before God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall (Gr. is about to) judge
the quick and the dead at his appearing (^epiphaneia)
and his kingdom."

2 Tim. 4:8. " There is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge,
shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but
unto all them also that love his appearing."

2 Tim. 4 : 18. " The Lord shall deliver me from
every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heav-
enly kingdom."

Titus 2 : 13. "Looking for that blessed hope, and

»" This assumes the nearness of the coming of the Lord."
— Alford.

^"The words assume, as St. Paul always does when
speaking incidentally, the ' we ' surviving to witness the coming
of the Lord."— ^Z/ord.

THE TIME OF THE PABOUSIA. 41

the glorious appearing (epiphaneia) of the great God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ."

Heb. 9 : 28. " Unto them that look for hun shall
he appear (Gr. be seen), the second time, without sin
unto salvation."

Heb. 10 : 25. " And so much the more as ye see
the day^ approaching."

Heb. 10: 37. "For yet a little while, and he that
shall come will come, and will not tarry." The ex-
pression in the original is very peculiar. The words
translated " a little while," are a sort of double super-
lative, denoting the smallest possible time. Alford
translates them a "little little while." He thinks
that Paul had in his mind a similar expression in the
Septuagint of Isa. 26 : 20, which in our version is
rendered "for a little moment." Nothing could ex-
press more forcibly the idea of the speediness of the
event referred to. Yet, as if that were not enough,
the same thing is repeated in the negative form, —
" and will not tarry."

SECTION lY.
THE TESTIMONY WEIGHED.

I have thus cited or referred to above seventy
instances in which our Lord and his apostles spoke
directly or indirectly of the time of that great period
named the Parousia. The casual reader, not familiar
with the customary phraseology of the apostolic age,
may not have always recognized the allusion to that

*"The shortest of all designations of the Lord's com-
ing."—^Z/or^.

42 THE PABOUSIA.

period, but a careful study of the passages will not
leave any doubt on that point. What now is the con-
clusion to which they bring us ?

1. Let it be noted that in none of these passages,
nor in any other of either Testament, is there any
affirmation that the Parousia was distant. Nearly
two thousand years have passed since that time, and
if the Parousia is still future, it must then have been
far off, — how much more than two thousand years we
cannot say. Is it not remarkable that, if this were so,
no intimation of that fact should at any time have
been made ? Is it not wonderful that among at least
fourscore allusions to the event, and the time when it
was expected, not one of them should have hinted at
the truth, — if such was the truth ? Is it not passing
strange that in stating their expectations and hopes,
and urging the powerful motives which centered in
that event, not one should have uttered a word, or be-
trayed the trace of an impression in his mind, that the
time was more than twenty centuries distant ? Nay,
take this assumed fact — say of twenty centuries — and
carry it back and lay it along side the utterances
quoted, as a supposed explanation of what their authors
meant : — "at hand," "before some standing here taste
of death," "this generation," "from now," "quickly,"
"the time is short," "we who are alive and remain
unto it," "a little little while," etc. Is that, I cannot
help asking, a proper way of understanding inspired
words ? I need not ask the learned only ; I appeal to
every plain man of common sense. Do these phrases
mean twenty centuries or more ? Can they mean that

THE TIME OF THE PAEOUSIA. 43

by any reasonable interpretation ? Had we been among
the hearers of our Lord or the apostles, could we have
possibly understood their words in such a meaning?

2. The testimonies I have considered are, most of
them, expressed in simple^ plain words. They are not
clothed in figurative language or presented only
through pictures and symbols, like many others used
in prophecy. "Ye shall not have gone over the cities
of Israel till the Son of man be come." "Some
standing here who shall not taste death till they see
the Son of man coming in his kingdom." " The
Parousia of the Lord draweth nigh." " I come quick-
ly." " The Lord is at hand." " In a little little while,
he that shall come will come and will not tarry," etc.
Nothing can be more direct, literal, positive. Mathe-
matical terms are not less ambiguous. Says Prof.
Reuss, "All these representations are clear and simple ;
they have nothing equivocal about them ; there is not
a word to suggest that there is any hidden meaning,
any mental reservation, reducing their value merely
to that of parable or figure. It is evident that the
narrators, who serve as our guides, took every word
literally, and had not a shadow of doubt in reference
to the matter." Hist. Ch. Theology, p. 214. Why
then should we not receive them in the same way ?

3. It is certain that those who heard the words of
our Lord on the subject understood him as teaching
the near approach of the Parousia; that they them-
selves expected it; and of course that when they
referred to it they meant to be understood in the same
way. This is now conceded by nearly all commenta-

44 THE PAROaSIA.

tors. The following statements may be added to
those already cited in connection with the particular
passages. Says Prof. Stuart, " Tholuck and most of
the late commentators in Germany suppose that the
apostles expected the speedy advent upon earth
a second time." Com. on Rom. 13: 11. "The
Messianic kingdom begins by means of the second
coming of Christ, which Paul regarded near." Meyer.
"All the writers of the New Testament consider
Christ's advent as near ; in fact the whole doctrine
would not have the slightest practical significance un-
less the longing after the second coming of Christ
were each moment alive, and therefore continually

deemed possible." Ohhausen^ on 1 Thess. 4 : 15.

" That St. John, like the other apostles, expected the
coming of Christ as nigh at hand is a certain fact."
Ubrard, on 1 John. " All the apostolic exhortations
and consolations are so clearly connected with the
prospect of the personal return of the Lord, that
whosoever contradicts this last thereby takes away the
roof and cornice from the structure of the apostolic
theology." Van Oosterzee. Hist. II. p. 581, " Cer-
tainly the apostles do all of them express often
enough the expectation of the coming as near, — a
living hope and longing expectation." Auherlen in
Lange's Com. 1 Thess. 4: 17. — There can be but
one reasonable conclusion from these facts. For the
apostles were inspired men, expressly commissioned
to teach what they had received from the Lord. The
language I have cited from them was written under
the guidance of the Holy Ghost, who was promised to

THE TIME OF THE PABOUSIA. 45

" teach them all things, and bring all things to their
remembrance whatsoever he had said unto them."
John 14 : 26. If they, so taught and so guided, un-
derstood that the Parousia was at hand, then we must
so understand it, or relinquish the belief of their in-
spiration altogether.

It is curious, though not pleasant, to observe by
what methods those who deny that the Parousia has
taken place endeavor to escape this conclusion.
Whenever these passages are approached, the first
thing is to concede that in words they teach that doc-
trine. The language is sufficiently plain and explicit.
Instead, however of accepting their obvious meaning,
and making less clearly taught truths conform to this,
they begin to look around for some way to avoid its
force. Some boldly say the apostles were mistaken.
Thus Mr. Barnes : " I do not know that the proper
doctrine of inspiration suffers if we admit that the
apostles were ignorant of the exact time when the
world would close, or even that in regard to the pre-
cise period when that would take place theg might be
in error.''' Com. on 1 Cor. 15 : 51. Inspired men
in error I And that not about matters outside of
religion, but about the very things they were com-
missioned to teach, and which they made the very
" roof and cornice " of their theology ! We cannot
conceive of it. The suggestion shocks all our ideas of
inspiration and of the infallibility of the divine
Word. Rather would we say with Stuart : " It is
incredible that the apostles, if enlightened by super-
natural influence, should not have been taught better

46 THE PAROUSIA.

than to lead the whole Christian church to a vain and
false hope about the appearance of Christ, which when
frustrated by time and experience would lead of
course to general distrust in all their experiences and
hopes." Com. on Rom. 13 : 11. — And then, what of
the Lord himself ? Was ITe in error also ?

Not a few writers, hesitating apparently to say out-
right that Paul was mistaken, seek to weaken the
force of his statements by intimating that they are
found chiefly in his earlier einstles^ as if the growing
wisdom of his later years had corrected, or at least
abated, the fondness of his former expectations. Says
Olshausen^ " Paul seems in later times not only to
give up the hope of living to see Christ's second com-
ing himself (compare Phil. 1 : 23 with 1 Thess. 4 :
16, 17), but also to have dwelt less in his teaching on
the near approach of the outward kingdom of God,
and to have presented in stronger relief its spiritual
aspects." So Alford : " I find in the course of St.
Paul's epistles that expressions which occur in the
earlier ones, and seem to indicate expectations of his
almost immediate coming, are gradually modified,
disappear altogether from the epistles of the impris-
onment, and instead of them are found others speaking
in a very different strain of dissolving and being with
Christ, and passing through death and the resurrection
in the latest epistles." Proleg. 1 Thess. Granting
this, what then? Was not Paul as truly inspired
when he wrote the earlier as the later epistles ? He
must have been over fifty years old when the very
first — 1 Thess. — was written ; he had been preaching

THE TIME OF THE PAEOUSIA. 47

the gospel nearly or quite twenty years; shall his
words be discredited because of either youth or inex-
perience ? Are not the epistles to the Thessalonians
as much the word of God as that to the Philippians ?
Even if he had said less of the Parousia in his later
than in the earlier years, does it follow that it was be-
cause his opinion was different ? I have suggested a
special reason why he made the subject so prominent
at Thessalonica, and that is enough to account fully
for any such supposed difference between these and
the later epistles. Besides, I question not only the
hypothesis but the alleged fact itself. If Paul's im-
prisonment was in A. D. 62-65 then the later epistles
were those addressed to the Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians, and Philemon, and latest of all to Timothy
and Titus. But where in all his writings are there
stronger expressions of his hope and expectation than
in Phil. 4: 5; Col. 3: 4; 2 Tim. 4 : 1, 8, 18; Titus 2
13 ? Equally decided are the passages quoted from
the Hebrews, though both Alford and Olshausen
doubt the Pauline authorship of that epistle.

More reprehensible even than these is the opinion
avowed by Olshausen that our Lord purposely used
language calculated to mislead his hearers, for the sake
of the moral effect to be thus gained. The Parousia,
though not to occur for more than sixty generations,
''in its great leading events is immediately associated
with the present, and thus great impressiveness is given
to the entire portraiture without its treading too closely

upon the truth'' "Had the Redeemer intended to

say that his coming was yet very distant" — which ac-

48 THE PAROUSIA.

cording to this author's view was the exact truth, —
"such a statement would have entirely destroyed the
ethical import of the prophecy, viz., the incitement to
watchfulness which it was designed to produce ; and
if, on the other hand, he had so expressed himself as
to say nothing at all about the time when these things
would come to pass, this total silence would have been
no less paralyzing in its influence. But the represen-
tation given by the Lord was so framed as to act in a
two-fold way, first, to keep before the mind the con-
stant possibility of his coming, and secondly, to show
the impossibility of fixing upon a precise period."
Com. on Matt. 24 : 36. That is to say, neither silence
nor the exact truth would have had the best " ethical
influence ;" so our Lord purposely used ambiguous and
misleading words for the sake of inciting his disciples
to watchfulness! What, 1 cannot help asking, must
be the straits of a theory which makes necessary so
shocking an invention as this !

Schott, Bloom field, and others seek to solve the diffi-
culty by "a middle course," supposing that Paul did
r. ot intend to teach that the near approach of the Par-
ousia was certain^ but only possible. "By speaking
obscurely, he doubtless meant to express no certain
expectation on the subject ; for though he was himself
inclined to think that some then alive should witness
the coming of Christ, or at least, that it was not far
distant, yet he was well aware that it was not permit-
ted to him to know the times and the seasons which
the Father had reserved to himself ; so we find that
he sometimes refutes those who expected the Lord's

THE TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 49

return to be close at hand and gladly anticipated it.
And as the apostle at the time when he wrote this
epistle was not yet advanced in life, he might very
well entertain the opinion that he should perhaps live

to see that day." Bloomfield. 1 Thess. 4 : 15.

Surely this is to empty the solemn admonitory words
of Paul of half their meaning. The Parousia only
mai/ be near; which implies, of course, that it may
not. The "ethical" benefit of the expectation may
be gained, and at the same time his credit as a prophet
will be saved if it turns out to be a mistake ! Does
the Holy Spirit guide men into such double dealing
as that? Besides, is this a true representation of the
facts ? Does Paul speak " obscurely"? Does he intend
to affirm a bare possibility P Let the reader glance
again over the passages I have cited, and point if he
can to one which betrays the slightest doubt. On
the contrary, language could not be more forcible in
urging upon his readers the absolute certainty of the
great event foretold, and their duty to " stand fast,
and hold the traditions they had received" from him ;
while his fervent prayer was that the Lord would
"direct their hearts into the love of God, and the
patient waiting for Christ." And I add, as before,
even if the apostles did deem it only "possible," was
the same thing true of Christ himself ? Are his words,
prefaced so often with his " verily, verily," uncertain?
But the most common and perhaps plausible meth-
od of escaping from the obvious language of our
Lord and his apostles is by resorting to the theory of
a double sense. These prophetic utterances, it is said,

50 THE PAROUSIA.

had two meanings ; first, the apparent one which was
fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem ; and second-
ly, within and beyond this, a higher one, which awaits
fulfillment at the end of the world. This is what
Dean Alford calls " the pregnant meaning of proph-
ecy," and which he applies to our Lord's great
discourse in Matt. 24th and 25th as follows : — " Two
parallel interpretations run through the former part
as far as verse 28 ; the destruction of Jerusalem, and
the final judgment being both enwrapped in the
words, but the former, in this part of the chapter,
predominating. Even in this part, however, we can-
not tell how applicable the warnings given may be to
the events of the last times, in which apparently
Jerusalem is to play so distinguished a part. From
verse 28 the lesser subject begins to be swallowed up
by the greater, and our Lord's second coming to be
the predominant theme, with, however, certain hints
thrown back, as it were, at the event which was im-
mediately in question ; till in the latter part of the
chapter and the whole of the next, the second advent,
and at last the final judgment ensuing on it, are the
subjects." Com. Matt. 24: 3.

Of the correctness of this theory as a principle of
sound exegesis, I shall say but little. It is entirely
unsatisfactory to my mind, and has been strenuously
controverted by some of our ablest commentators.
My objections to it may be stated briefly. 1. There
is no proof of such double sense in the Scriptures.
They no where assert anything of the sort, and give
no example of an inspired person resorting to such a

THE TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 51

mode of interpretation. 2. There is no warrant for it
in the ordinary laws of language, except when a
writer is professedly employing parables, riddles, or
allegories. 3. The secondary and so called higher
sense is wholly indeterminate. No one can tell where
it begins or ends, or how much is included in it. Ob-
serve in the very example proposed by the learned
Dean, how exceedingly indefinite are the metes and
bounds of the two senses ; indeed, how the mind of
the reader must flit back and forth from one to the
other, making his imagination his only guide, and
confessing as he does, " We cannot tell how applicable
the warnings given may be " to the latter. 4. The
principle is unsafe. Scripture thus interpreted be-
comes susceptible of any and every meaning which
theory or fancy may invent. Witness the innumera-
ble extravagances which have been put forth on this
subject of the second advent, all based on the as-
sumption that the Scripture language means some-
thing over and beyond what it seems to mean, —
extravagances which have done so much to bring the
whole subject of eschatology into contempt, and to
dishonor the word of God. In the present case, it is
enough to say that neither the Lord nor his apostles
ever speak of but one Parousia, and never assign any
other time for it, primary or secondary, than that
existing generation. If there is to be another, to oc-
cur at some distant era still future, that fact must be
gathered from some other source than their recorded
words.

4. The primitive Christians, who had themselves

52 THE PAROUSIA.

heard the preaching of Christ and his apostles, under-
stood them as teaching its near approach. That such
was the case with the church in Thessalonica is noto-
rious. " As matter of fact," says Alford, " the apostles
and ancient Christians did continue to expect the
Lord's coming after that generation had passed away."
— " This constant expectation of our Lord's coming,
when he shall be revealed in his glory unto all, is one
of the characteristic features of primitive Christianity."
Kling, in Lange's Com. 1 Cor. 1 : 7. Gibbon, whose
testimony as historian on this point need not be ques-
tioned, says, " In the primitive church * * * *
* it was universally believed that the end of the
world and the kingdom of heaven were at hand. The
near approach of this wonderful event had been predic-
ted by the apostles ; the tradition of it had been pre-
served by their earliest disciples, and those who under-
stood in their literal sense the discourses of Christ him-
self were obliged to expect the second and glorious
coming of the Son of man in the clouds before that
generation was totally extinguished which had beheld
his humble condition upon earth, and which might still
be witness of the calamities of the Jews under Vespas-
ian or Hadrian." Dec. and Fall, ch. XY.

I ask, then, how could such an opinion have obtained
such an acceptance if it had not in fact been taught by
Christ and the apostles ? Error might, indeed, spring
up here and there in various ways, but whence this
universal belief? It is often alleged that Paul wrote
the second epistle to the Thessalonians to correct that
opinion, and declare authoritatively that the Parousia

THE TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 53

was not "at hand." If so, why had not the correction
proved effective, both among the Thessalonians and
elsewhere ? — for, from the very earliest date, this epistle
was received as of undoubted inspiration in all the
churches. There is but one way of accounting for
this indisputable fact. The whole Christian church
could not have been brought to receive as one of its
fundamental articles of faith a doctrine which had not
come to them from the very fountain of all authority.

5. That the declarations of our Lord and the
apostles, which I have cited, mean what they seem to
mean as to the near approach of the Parousia is evident
from the connection in which they standi and the pur-
poses for which they were uttered. That doctrine is
rarely or never advanced in the way of a general di-
dactive statement, but always as having an important
bearing for encouragement, incitement, or warning, on
some present exigency, in which the very stress of
the passage lies in the fact that the Parousia was near.
When Christ told his disciples that he would come in
the glory of his Father to reward every man according
to his works, and added, that some of them should not
taste death till they had seen it, — what was it but to
console them with the prospect of a speedy compensa-
tion for their sufferings ? Take away this element of
speediness, and the promise is robbed of its meaning.
So with waiting and watching for his coming. I
submit that it is impossible for any person to be in
such an attitude of expectancy toward any event
which is indefinitely distant. Let the reader try it
for himself. Let him conceive of any great occurrence,

54 THE PABOUSIA.

however full of weal or woe, that is to happen two
thousand years hence, and see if he can, by any practice
upon himself, come into such a state that he can truly
say that he is waiting or looking for it, or expecting
it. How could Paul be confident that He who had
begun a good work in the Philippians would perform
it for more than twenty centuries to come? What
would be the force of such admonitions as, " Let your
moderation be known to all men ; the Lord will come
two thousand years after you are all dead " ? " Grudge
not one against another lest ye be condemned ; the
Judge, some ages hence, will stand at the door"?
"The end of all things is far off; be ye therefore
sober and watch unto prayer " ?

I insist that it is this very element of nearness
which imparts to this entire body of eschatological
utterances their significance. They were not given
to be dry didactics about the future, but solemn
warnings or inspirations to courage, hope, and joy, for
present use. To be such they must be drawn from
events not very far remote. Such is the nature of
man that he is and can be but feebly impressed by
what is far distant in space or time. Olshausen
clearly recognizes this fact in his remark already
quoted : " Had the Redeemer intended to say that
his coming was yet very far distant, such a statement
would have entirely destroyed the ethical import of
the prophecy, viz.: the incitement to watchfulness
which it was designed to produce." Without it, " the
whole doctrine would not have the slightest practical
significance." This is certainly true, but we cannot

THE TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 55

admit the monstrous inference he derives from it,
that our Lord purposely used language calculated to
mislead his disciples for the sake of that influence.
Why did not the learned author see that the very al-
ternative he states is a proof that the event was not
far distant? I believe that it is just this, or at least it
is one of the causes, which have made the " gospel of
the kingdom " so ineffective in modern times, com-
pared with what it was in the time of the apostles.
Let the Parousia, as a now existing fact, be preached
with as much earnestness as they preached it as an
anticipated fact, — in other words, that Christ has
come, that he is now upon the throne of his kingdom,
ruling, judging, and rewarding men according to their
works, with his mighty angels attending him to do his
will, and by the new-creating energy of his provi-
dence and Spirit making " all things new," and I
believe that the event witnessed on the day of pente-
cost, and even greater, would speedily follow.

SECTION V.
OBJECTIONS.

There are objections to the foregoing view which it
is my duty to consider.

1. The first is that so understood the prediction
was not fulfilled ; the Parousia did not take place in
that generation. Says Alford : " All these prseterist
interpretations have against them one fatal objection,
—that it is impossible to conceive of the destruction
of Jerusalem as in any sense corresponding to the
Parousia in St. Paul's sense of the term." " The

56 THE PAROUSIA.

destruction of Jerusalem is inadequate as an interpre-
tation of the coming of the Lord here. He has not
yet come in any sense adequate to such interpreta-
tion ; therefore the prophecy has yet to be fulfilled."
Proleg. 2 Tim. sects. 24, 28. In reply it may be
remarked : —

First, that as a principle of interpretation this is
unsound and unsafe. If the words of our Lord, ac-
cording to the established and undoubted laws of
language, do say, that the Parousia should be in that
generation, then that was his assertion. If not ful-
filled, it may discredit his truthfulness, but it does
not disprove the fact that he said so. Failure to pay
a note of hand when due, does not prove that pa3^ment
at that time was not promised. The learned dean
himself strenuously contends for this principle in other
places. Often things are said in the New Testament,
to be done " that it might be fulfilled " (rV« 7[)j]pcod^7j)
which had been spoken by a prophet, when on com-
paring the event with the alleged prediction we find
it impossible to see Jioiv one was the fulfillment of the
other. Yet Dean Alford insists that we must so ac-
cept it, whatever the difficulty. He will not permit
us to evade the force of the words by a hair's
breadth. "Such a construction" he says, (that it
might be fulfilled), "can have but one meaning. If
such meaning involves us in difficulty regarding the
prophecy itself, far better leave such difficulty in so
doubtful a matter as the interpretation of prophecy
unsolved, than create one in so simple a matter as the
rendering of a phrase whose meaning no indifferent

THE TIME OF THE PABOUSIA. 57

person could doubt." Com. Matt. 1 : 22. This is a
weighty observation, and most worthy to be remem-
bered. Had the author himself observed it, he would
not have tried to get rid of the meaning of this
prophecy of the Parousia, which is affirmed by a
multitude of phrases no less simple, no less impossible
to be doubted by any indifferent person, than the
one to which he referred.

Second. It is not, I submit, competent for any un-
inspired man to say what is and what is not an "ade-
quate " fulfillment of prophecy, against the pointed in-
dications contained in its own language. There cer-
tainly did happen in that generation an event or
cluster of events, which, considered in their own na-
ture and in their relations to the history of mankind
past and future, surpassed in importance every other
that can be named, save only the death of Christ.
That great spiritual and civil establishment, the He-
brew theocracy, which created at once a religion and
a state, founded by the direct appointment of Jeho-
vah amid the visible splendors of Sinai, and hallowed
by a duration of sixteen hundred years, — an institu-
tion represented in Christ's time in the grandest city
and most august temple in the world, — was suddenly,
and with such horrors as never attended any like
catastrophe, overthrown, and in place of it was set
up another theocracy, a spiritual kingdom, which from
that hour, like the stone cut out without hands, en-
tered upon a career of development and conquest
which shall one day fill the whole earth ; whose capital
shall be a "New Jerusalem " ten thousand times ex-
4

68 THE PAROUSIA.

ceeding the old one in splendor and power, into which
the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and
honor ; whose temple shall be the Presence of God
and the Lamb, and where Jesus shall reign forever.
Who shall say that such an event, or cluster of events,
was " inadequate " to the most exalted conception of
the language employed by our Saviour ? We call it,
indeed, for convenience sake, the " destruction of Je-
rusalem," from one of the incidents embraced in it,
but it is a great mistake to suppose that that bare
physical event, — which in itself may or may not have
been more important than that of other cities before
or after, — was all that we mean by it. And with all
respect for this great commentator, I must beg leave
to say that, precisely in the same way that he has
done, might a rabbi of our Saviour's own day have
disproved the fact of his first advent. Had not all
the prophets declared that the Messiah should come as
a mighty and triumphant king ? And was the poor
Galilean who stood bound before Pilate, forsaken by
his nearest friends, and scornfully rejected by the very
people whom he claimed as his subjects, that king?
"It is impossible," Caiaphas might have said, "to
conceive of this Jesus as in any sense corresponding

to the prophetic descriptions of our Messiah. He

has not come in any sense adequate to those descrip-
tions; therefore, this is not the Messiah, and the
prophecies have yet to be fulfilled ! "

2. Another objection of a similar character is, that
the Parousia was to be accompanied by stupendous
physical phenomena^ which did not occur in that age.

THE TIME OF THE PAR0U8IA, 59

The sun and moon should be darkened ; the stars
should fall from Heaven ; the Son of man should be
seen coming in the clouds with power and great glory ;
he should be attended with his mighty angels, and
with the great sound of a trumpet; the heavens
should pass away with a great noise, the elements
melt with fervent heat, the earth and the works that
are therein should be burned up ; and a new heaven
and a new earth created. Because all this did not
happen in that generation, therefore, it is alleged, the
Parousia did not take place.

Now I freely concede that the prophecy was not
fulfilled in the physical sense of these terms. I admit
fully the incompatibility between it and any such ful-
fillment. What then is the inference? The same
that every one makes, that the language on the one
side or the other must be taken in some modified sense
that will obviate this contradiction. Which shall it
be ? On the side of the prediction, the language, as
we have seen, is simple, direct, plain ; it is scarcely
susceptible of a figurative meaning ; it is repeated in a
great many forms, more than fourscore times ; and we
know what meaning it bore in the minds of those who
uttered and those who heard it. On the other side, we
find the language poetic, symbolic, in itself absolutely
incapable of being taken literally. The stars to fall
from heaven, — the uncounted millions of mighty suns
to leave their constellations and galaxies and take
their flight to this little earth ? Impossible ! The
moon to be turned into blood, — a vast globe of clotted
gore ? The sun turned into darkness f The elements,

60 THE PABOUSIA.

— earth, air, fire, and water — to melt 9 The heavens,
— the emptiness of infinite space showing to us only
the reflected blue of the sunlight — to be rolled togeth-
er as a scroll ? Certainly not. In their very nature
all these expressions are figurative. They must, be-
cause of their appropriate symbolism, or of ancient
prophetic usage, be understood as referring to great
moral changes on the earth, just such as we have de-
scribed as connected with what is called concisely the
"destruction of Jerusalem." I shall endeavor to
show, hereafter, that such was their well-known pro-
phetic usage, as familiar to and as incapable of being
misapprehended by the Jews of Christ's time as their
commonest dialect on religious topics, and in that
sense they were all most signally fulfilled.

3. It is objected further, in the same line, that the
Parousia of Christ was to be accompanied by the
resurrection of the dead, the day of judgment, the end
of the world, etc., and as these did not occur in that
age, the Parousia itself could not have taken place.
This is probably the most formidable objection that
has been or can be urged against the views I have
maintained. But the difficulty, to my view, lies in
the restricted ideas which we have been so accustomed
to give to the Parousia, limiting it without warrant to
a brief time, as a single day, or a point in duration.
The word itself, as I have already shown, conveys no
such limited meaning; rather does it denote relations
of permanence with men, — an abiding Pbesence,
which, beginning with the overthrow of the ancient
dispensation, its sacred city and its temple, once the

THE TIME OF THE PAEOUSIA. 61

dwelling place of Jehovah but now "left to them
desolate," is to last as long as the Messiah reigns ;
long enough for the spiritual conquest of the world,
for the resurrection and the judgment ; long enough
to find its most glorious realization in the New Jeru-
salem, which John himself represents to be "the
tabernacle of God with men, in which he will dwell
with them, and they shall be his people, and God him-
self shall BE WITH THEM and be their God."

4. It is urged that the view I have presented is in-
consistent with Acts 1 : 11, which, it is said, teaches
that Christ's second coming was to be a visible and
bodily one^ which certainly' has not as yet taken place,
and must therefore be still future. " Ye men of Gali-
lee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This same
Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall
so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into
heaven." Adventists and Millenarians generally rely
upon this passage in support of their views, with
great confidence.

The meaning of this declaration depends on the
phrase " in like manner," — Greek, hon tropon. I can-
not deny that many able commentators give it the
signification above mentioned. Prof. Hackett says,
" The expression is never employed to affirm merely
the certainty of an event as compared with another.
The assertion that the meaning is simply that, as
Christ had departed so also would he return, is contra-
dicted by every passage in which the phrase occurs."
Alford : " To be taken in all cases literally, not as im-
plying mere certainty." And Prof. Alexander ; " The

62 THE PAROUSIA.

Greek phrase, hon tropon, never indicates mere
certainty or vague resemblance, but wherever it occurs
in the New Testament denotes identity of mode or
manner."

It may perhaps be deemed presumption for me to
call in question the critical opinion of scholars like
these, but as they themselves appeal to the other pas-
sages where the phrase occm-s, we may venture to accept
the appeal and judge for ourselves. The expression
occurs elsewhere in the New Testament four times, viz.
Matt. 23 : 37; Luke 13 : 34 ; Acts T : 28 ; 2 Tim. 3 : 8.

The first two instances may be regarded as identical.
" O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, — how often would I have
gathered thy children together even as — hon tropon —
a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye
would not ! " Now I submit to my readers whether
our Saviour meant to say that he had longed to gather
the wayward people of Jerusalem under his sheltering
care, in an " identity of mode or manner " with that
in which a hen broods over her chickens. Surely not.
Undoubtedly more is meant than the simple certainty
of the act ; it implies equal tenderness and faithfulness,
but it does not imply an exact resemblance in the form
of it.

The next passage occurs in Stephen's rehearsal of
the scene between Moses and the Egyptian in the desert.
" Wilt thou kill me as — hon tropon — thou didst the
Egyptian yesterday?" Here again I ask, was the mind
of the inquirer fixed on the mode of the apprehended
killing, or on its certainty as a fact ? Was he solicitous
to know whether it was to be done with staff or dagger,

THE TIME OF THE PAB0U8IA. 63

and the body buried in the sand, or simply whether
it was to be done, without reference to manner ? The
latter, most certainly. The force of the comparison
rests in the anticipated repetition of the act, not its
identity of form.

The remaining passage also relates to an incident
in the life of Moses. " Now as — hon tropon — Jannes
and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist
the truth." These are the traditional names of the
magicians who imitated in the presence of Pharaoh
the miracles wrought by God's servant. Ex. 7 : 11, 22.
But surely it will not be alleged that the false teachers
whom the apostle condemns opposed the truth pre-
cisely in the same way that the magicians did, viz., by
changing rods into serpents and the waters of the Nile
into blood. The point of comparison in Paul's mind
was in the fact of opposition, possibly with the further
idea of malice and evil design, but it could not have
meant to include the outward form or method of pro-
cedure.

Besides these instances in the New Testament, the
same phrase is several times found in the Septuagint.
Gen. 26 : 29. " That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we
have not touched thee, and as — hon tropon — we have
done unto thee nothing but good." Isa. 33: 4.
" Your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of
the caterpillar, as — hon tropon — the running to and
fro of locusts shall he run upon them." 2 Mace. 15 :
39. " As — hon tropon — wine mingled with water is
pleasant and delightful to the taste, even so speech
finely framed delighteth the ears of them that read

64 THE PAROUSIA.

the story." In these again, as in the former instances,
the point of the comparison is in the similarity of the
results, and not in any identity of the outward act.

Instead, then, of this Greek phrase meaning what
is alleged in every place where it occurs, we find in
fact that it never means that ; that such meaning, if
put upon it, would be absurd and impossible. It
must have been by inadvertence, without an actual
examination of the point, that the eminent scholars
named gave their opinion as they did. We take the
liberty to offset them by the statement of another
equally eminent, whose competence as a critic of the
Greek none will question, the late Professor Crosby of
Dartmouth College. " In reading this passage we are
in danger of attaching more force to the expression
in our version, ' in like manner as,' than the original
words — hon tropon — require. These words have no
necessary reference to the particular manner in which
a thing is done.'''' Sec. Advent, p. 15.

It turns out then in this case, as in not a few others,
that the materialistic aspect of this passage is due
rather to its peculiar rendering in our English version,
than to the exact meaning of the original. Had our
translators been uniform in their renderings, giving
the phrase here precisely as they did in every other
instance in the New Testament, that aspect would not
have appeared.*

* This will be more apparent if the several passages be shown
side by side. Two of them present the comparison in the nat-
ural order.

Luke 13: 34.
How often would I have gath- as a hen doth gather her brood
ered thy children together under her wings.

THE TIME OF THE PAROUSIA. 65

And does not the passage itself bear upon the face
of it that it is not to be so interpreted ? " He shall
so come in like manner as ye have seen him go." But
he departed, as the narrative implies, under the same
physical form that he had worn ever since his resur-
rection. He had been conversing with his disciples
in his usual manner. There is not the slightest inti-
mation that, so long as he remained visible, there was
any other than his usual aspect. As he went up " a
cloud received him," and that was all. But is that
the way he is to come again ? — that the fulfillment of
the sublime language in which his return is elsewhere
set forth, " in the glory of his Father," " with his
mighty angels," the " flaming fire," " the voice of the
archangel and the trump of God ? " Insist upon it
that exact " identity of form and manner " is meant,
and you place this text in irreconcilable contradiction
with every other which describes the ineffable majesty
of his appearing.

4. But the objection most frequently and most
confidently urged is derived from the language of the
apostle in 2 Thess. 2 : 1-12. We give the essential

Acts 7: 28.
Wilt thou kill me as thou didst the Egyptian yes-

terday ?
The other two place the second part of the comparison
first.

2 Tim. 3: 8.
Now as Jannes and Jambres so do these also resist the
withstood Moses, truth.

Acts 1 : 11.
This same Jesus — as ye have so shall he come,
seen him go into heaven,

66 THE PAROUSIA.

part of the passage in Alford's translation. "But
we entreat you, brethren, in regard of the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together
unto him, — in order that ye should not be lightly
shaken from your mind nor troubled, neither by spirit,
nor by word, nor by epistle as from us, to the effect
that the day of the Lord is present. Let no man de-
ceive you in any manner, for [that day shall not
come] unless there have come the apostasy first, and
there have been revealed the man of sin, the son of
perdition," etc.

Such is the language which it is so often said, ex-
pressly contradicts the doctrine of the near approach
of the Parousia. We ask the reader to note on the
very face of it how far it is from justifying the state-
ments which have been based upon it. " He warns
them against the expectation of the speedy advent of
Christ."^ " We find that he sometimes refutes those
who expected the Lord's return to be close at hand
and gladly anticipated it."^ " This interpretation (of
the speedy advent of Christ upon earth a second time)
was formally and strenuously corrected in 2 Thess.
2."«

What then was the error which these Thessalonians
held? Our English version has it, "that the day of
the Lord is at handy The true reading, however is,
is come. " Not only the nearness but the actual pres-
ence and commencement of the day," says EUicott.

« Hodge Com. on 1 Cor. 15 : 51.

^ Bloomfield in loc.

<^ Stuart Com. on Rom. 13: 10.

THE TIME OF THE PAR0U8IA. 67

"Is present," says Auberlen.* He adds, "The apos-
tle does not intend generally to put far away the ex-
pectation of the last day. We are merely not to let
ourselves be surprised by the cry, 'ffere it is now!^^^
Alford says, " Is present, not is at hand. St. Paul
could not have so written, nor could the Spirit have
so spoken by him. The teaching of the apostle was,
and of the Holy Spirit, in all ages, has been, that the
day of the Lord is at hand. But these Thessalonians
imagined it to be already come, and accordingly were
deserting their pursuits in life, and falling into other
irregularities, as if the day of grace were closed."

The expectation of the speedy coming of the Lord,
then, was not the error into which these Christians
had fallen, nor which the apostle here corrected. On
the contrary, in this very chapter he reiterates the
command to " stand fast and hold the traditions which
ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle,"
i. e. to be in the attitude of " waiting for his Son from
heaven," which he had preached to them at first, and
so forcibly enjoined upon them in his former letter.

But the "falling away" and the "man of sin"
must precede the Parousia. How can that be made
consistent with the theory of his speedy coming?

This epistle was written in the year A. D. 53. Je-
rusalem was destroyed in A. D. 70. Assuming this
to have been synchronous with the Parousia, we have
a period of seventeen years during which these events,
on the theory I maintain, must have occurred.
What was there in that period at all answering to the

^ In Lange's Com.

68 THE PABOUSIA.

description of those things contained in this chapter?
First the "falling away," — Greek, the apostasy. In
the original, the article prefixed shows it was some
known and definite event, one that had been before
spoken of, and which the Thessalonians would recog-
nize, needing no other designation than ''Hhe apos-
tasy." Now we find in Matt. 24: 10-12 that this
was one of the very things which our Saviour
expressly said should precede the destruction of Je-
rusalem. "Then shall many be offended," i. e.
caused to stumble or apostatize, " and shall betray one
another and shall hate one another. And many false
prophets shall arise and shall deceive many. And be-
cause iniquity shall abound the love of many shall
wax cold." And that such a defection actually oc-
curred among the infant churches during this very
period is a matter of history. Tacitus, in describing
the persecution under Nero, says, " Those who con-
fessed they were Christians were first brought to trial,
and after that a vast multitude of others in conse-
quence of their testimony,''''^ Frequent allusions are
made in the later epistles, written from A. D. 55 to
A. D. 65, to the dangers of such an apostasy. See
especially the second epistle to Timothy, the epistle to
the Hebrews, chaps, iii, vi, and xii, the second epistle
of Peter, and the epistles of the Apocalypse to the
seven churches of Asia. Who can doubt, then, that
the apostle who had preached to the Thessalonians so
fully the coming of Christ, as predicted in this dis-

* Primo correpti qtrt fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multi-
tude ingens. Annalxv:44.

THE TIME OF THE PAB0U8IA. 69

course in Matthew, had told them of this great defec-
tion, of which he now reminds them again, as "the
apostasy " which must precede that coming, an event
whose occurrence in those very seventeen years is as
clearly established in history as that of the wars and
famines and earthquakes that were mentioned in the
same connection."^

Secondly the " Man of Sin," called also in verse 8,
"that Wicked," (Gr. 6 ''Apo/uoc:, the Lawless One).
In attempting to show whom Paul meant by these ap-
pellations I would speak with becoming diffidence,
where the ablest commentators of every age have been
so much puzzled. Apart from that fact, however, I
confess it does not seem to be such an unresolvable
mystery. Three things I think ought to concur in
the solution. 1. The man of sin must be a person.^
It seems to me very unnatural to suppose that Paul
meant to designate in such terms a mere abstract prin-
ciple of evil, such as a heresy in doctrine, or a long
succession of evil doers, like the popes. 2. He must be
one in such position and holding such relations to the

*It is surprising what assertions the most eminent writers
often make under the influence of a pre-accepted theory. Thus
Olshausen, who denies the fulfillment of this prophecy before
the destruction of Jerusalem, says, "The persecutions of that
period were not so violent as to drive many away from the
faith, and from the first glow of love." (Com. on Matt. 24: 11-
13). Yet among these persecutions was that of Nero, A. D.
64r-68. If he deems this not a "violent" one, it would be inter-
esting to learn his idea of violence.

^ They — the early fathers — all regard the Adversary here de-
scribed as an individual person, the incarnation and concentra-
tion of sin." Alford. Prolog on 2 Thess,, 53.

70 THE PAROUSIA.

Thessalonians as to be an object of apprehension to
them personally. What can be more improbable than
that Paul, writing a brief letter to these friends of his
on matters of the most practical character, should in-
terpose among its affectionate counsels a formal
prophecy of some disastrous event that should hap-
pen in distant ages and lands, — if the papacy, at least
five hundred — ^if something even now future, two
thousand years after their day, and with which they
had no more to do practically than we have with what
may happen in Ethiopia twenty centuries hence ? 3.
He must be, nevertheless, one whom for some reason
it would be unsafe or improper to name more definite-
ly,— who might be referred to only under these enig-
matic terms, which, however, the Thessalonians would
readily understand, on recalling what the apostle had
said to them the year before when he was present
with them.

Taking these, then, as our clew, we are conducted
at once to the emperor Neko, as the monster in whom
all the probabilities of the case meet. He was a per-
son whose character and acts fully entitled him to be
called the " Man of Sin," and the " Lawless One." His
imperial dignity and resistless power over both Rome
and the provinces made him one to be eminently feared
throughout the empire ; and being such he could not
be spoken of in any but the most guarded terms on
penalty of treason. And the sequel showed that there
were good reasons why the Thessalonians should be
admonished of the perils impending over them under
his reign and over all the churches. Nero ascended

THE TIME OF THE PAEOUSIA. 71

the throne the next year after this epistle was written,
and ten years later broke forth in the most terrible
persecution against the Christians recorded in history.
Well might the prophetic pen of the apostle warn that
beloved infant church of the dangers which lay just
before them, and bid them strive by the cultivation of
their own faith and steadfastness to prepare themselves
for it, rather than run into extravagances of joy as if
already entering on the experience of promises which
could not be fulfilled for almost a score of years to
come.^

Assuming this, then, to be the right solution of this
much controverted passage, it ceases to be in the
slightest degree opposed to the doctrine I have main-
tained of the early manifestation of the Parousia. I
am confident that this interpretation cannot be refuted ;
I am sure that it is both natural and probable. The
very coincidences in time, personal characteristics, acts,
and effects are, to say the least, striking ; not only
not tending to disprove the speedy coming of the Lord,
but falling in exactly with the scope of the predictions
concerning it as first given by Christ himself, and
afterward repeated by all the apostles.^

We regard, then, this part of the true doctrine of

^•It was the common view of the Fathers that by saying "the
mystery of lawlessness doth already work," Paul meant N"ero.
So say Victorinus, Hilary, Chrysostom, Jerome. Augustine and
Theodoret also mention it. — A great many moderns have fol-
lowed this view, — Lyranus, Erasmus, Gagney, Guilland, Cornel-
ius a Lapide, etc. Dollinger, " First Age of the church" Yol 2.
p. 61. Note.

''For a fuller exhibition of the view thus presented the reader
is referred to the Appendix.

72 THE PAROUSIA.

the Parousia as demonstrated. If the declarations of
our Lord and of his apostles, repeated in numberless
instances and in the greatest variety of forms, express-
ly and incidentally, positively and negatively, during
the whole period from before the crucifixion to the
very eve of the downfall of Jerusalem, always affirm-
ing the near approach of the Parousia, never in a sin-
gle instance saying or implying that it was to be far
distant, can establish any truth on immovable founda-
tions, they have established this. Whatever else about
the Parousia is unrevealed or obscure, it is not this
particular of the time, — I mean of course within the
specified limits of that " generation." Not the fact of
the Parousia itself is more clearly asserted than this
concomitant of it. Not that fact is made more use of
" for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc-
tion in righteousness," than this element of its speedi-
ness. If any other things in or about the doctrine
seem inconsistent with this they must be modified to
harmonize with it, not it with them. If there be a
foundation text in all the Bible where we can build
the superstructure of doctrine securely, it is those
words of the Lord : —

"Verily I say unto you, This generation

SHALL NOT PASS TILL ALL THESE THINGS BE FUL-
FILLED. Heaven and earth shall pass away,

CHAPTER IV.

SCOPE OF THE PAROUSIA.

It has been already intimated that much of the dif-
ficulty of reaching any consistent view of the Parou-
sia has arisen from the impression that it was to occupy
only a brief space of time, rather than a long period.
Perhaps our English version has strengthened if not
created that impression, by uniformly translating the
Greek preposition £v, in this connection, by at^ a word
that we apply rather to a point of time than a pro-
longed duration. To say that something shall occur
at Christ's coming conveys a perceptibly different
shade of meaning from saying it shall take place in or
during his presence. Yet a mere glance at a Greek
Concordance will show that the instances in which the
word elsewhere means and is rendered in are at least
ten times as numerous as where it means and is trans-
lated at. Why the translators always gave it this com-
paratively infrequent signification, in this connection,
does not appear.

This protracted duration of the Parousia is a fact
of so much importance, that it deserves particular
consideration.

If we wished to measure the breadth of the ocean,
we should carefully determine the exact positions of
points known to lie upon its shores, or to be included

74 THE PAROUSIA.

within its expanse. Having the longitude of New
York and the longitude of Gibraltar, it is not difficult
to compute from these with great accuracy the dis-
tance between them ; in other words, the dimensions
of the space intervening. So there are certain things
which it is expressly declared shall take place in or
during the Parousia (iv zjj naftouaia') that, if we mis-
take not, will no less surely guide us to a correct idea
of its duration.

1. The first, as all know, was the establishment of
the new "kingdom of heaven." The old theocracy
founded by Moses was to pass away, and be succeeded
by a new one of a more comprehensive sway and a
higher glory. " They shall see the Son of man com-
ing in his kingdom." Matt. 16 : 28. " Ye shall see the
Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and
coming in the clouds of heaven." Matt. 26 : 64.

2. A second thing to occur in the Parousia was
the destruction of Jerusalem. Matt. 24 : 27, 34. Let
it be observed that this prediction is not in that part
of the chapter which many suppose refers to the day
of judgment, but in that which is universally conceded
to relate to the overthrow of the temple and city.

3. The destruction of the Man of Sin. " Whom the
Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and
shall destroy with the brightness of his Parousia."
2 Thess. 2 : 8. If the view I have presented of this
personage be accepted, — the view which generally pre-
vailed among the early Fathers, and is confirmed by
some of the ablest historians of modern times, — we
see a literal fulfillment of the promises in the events

SCOPE OF TUE PABOUSIA. 75

of the same great catastrophe. In the midst of the
siege of Jerusalem, and in the very flush of his power,
Nero was suddenly hurled from the throne he disgraced,
and died like a dog in one of the sewers of Rome. If
we take the more common Protestant view of the Man
of Sin as denoting the papacy, the argument becomes
still stronger. Its overthrow certainly has not yet
arrived, and we are already almost nineteen centuries
distant from the generation in which the Parousia
began.

4. In his epistles to the seven churches in Asia,
which constitute the introduction to the Book of Rev-
elation, John announces the repeated warnings of the
Lord of his speedy " coming " to try and reward them
according to their fidelity. The word parousia is not
indeed used in this case, but it will scarcely be denied
that the " coming " so often mentioned was identical
with it. The familiar imagery used by Christ himself
of that event, on the Mount of Olives, is employed.
" Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall
see him, and they also which pierced him ; and all
kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him."
There can be no doubt, as it seems to me, that reference
is made here to the persecutions then impending over
the churches, "the hour of temptation which shall
come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon
the earth." In that great trial Christ declares that he
will " come " to them with searching severity, to detect
and punish the unfaithful, to strengthen and comfort
his true children, and to reward those who were stead-
fast unto death with the crown and throne of victory

76 THE PABOUSIA.

in heaven. The nature of the promise indicates the
time of its fulfillment, viz., that persecuting era of
Rome which began with Nero about A. D. 64, and
ended with the accession of Constantine in A. D. 306.
5. In Christ's consolatory words to his disciples in
view of his approaching departure, he spoke of certain
" comings " which cannot be assigned to any particular
date, but are to be repeated in the personal history of
individuals in all ages. I do not mean to intimate
that these are the same thing with the Parousia, in its
general signification, but they do denote what shall
occur under the Parousia, and are particular and
special manifestations of it to individual believers.
" If a man love me he will keep my words ; and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him and
make our abode with him." " If I go and prepare a
place for you, I will come again ^ and receive you unto
myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." When
Christ enters into such relations to one that loves him,
it is an apocalypse of himself to that soul as Lord and
King, in power and glory. And when he comes to
the bedside of him who has fought a good fight and
kept the faith, and in his divine strength as the risen
and reigning Lord, makes him a partaker of the victory
he achieved for all his people, and bears him away to his
throne and home in his Father's house, it is to make
him a sharer in the glory of his Parousia. They are
the fruits of that great and blessed Presence of the
Lord which was to the apostles ever the source of so
much hope and joy.

^Dean Alford says this refers to "the great Bevisitation in all
its blessed progress."

SCOPE OF THE PAROUSIA. 77

6. The Parousia in express terms was to embrace
the resurrection of the dead. " Every man in his own
order ; Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are
Christ's, at his coming" — (Gr. in or during his Par-
ousia). 1 Cor. 15 : 23. I need spend no time to
establish this connection between the two, it being a
truth universally recognized that one of the objects of
Christ's coming in his Parousia was to be to raise the
dead.

7. Finally, the Parousia, in like manner, was to
embrace the general judgment. Matt. 25 : 31-46. I
think, indeed, that that sublime consummation, like
the Parousia itself, has a wider scope than is implied in
the usual materialistic conceptions of it. But this, at
least, is certain that it is to embrace the whole family
of mankind ; that there never has been and never will
be one to whom it is not appointed to "stand before
the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done
in his body, according to that he hath done, whether
it be good or bad."

Here, then, is a predicted event which was to em-
brace within it, at least, the seven specific things men-
tioned. This, be it observed, is not a matter of infer-
ence, but of express divine assertion. Its two termini
are the destruction of Jerusalem and the day of judg-
ment. And the question now recurs, how can these
two, with all that lies between, be included in one
term, if you do not make that term one of vast breadth
and comprehensiveness ? Insist upon it that the Par-
ousia means some point of time, some "day" or "hour,"
in the ordinary sense, and you create a difficulty

78 THE PABOUSIA.

which I know not how to solve. Insist that it not
only means such point of time, but that that " day "
is still future, and you contradict the most express
and oft repeated words of the Lord and of all his
apostles.

Something, at least, must be done to harmonize these
testimonies of the divine word. We cannot take up
the overthrow of the temple, the founding of the new
kingdom of the Messiah, the destruction of the Man
of Sin, and the disciplinary " coming " of the Lord to
the seven churches, and carry them forward into the
future, as events which are still to take place. We
cannot reach forward to the resurrection and the
judgment and carry them back to the generation when
Christ was on earth in the flesh. The grand programme
of the world's history under the administration of our
Lord, with its mighty procession of centuries and ages,
refuses to be thus narrowed down to a single point.
The powers of the mind revolt at such an attempt,
under the pressure of any theory, to do violence to
their intuitive convictions. You may resort to the
h3^pothesis of types, making those primitive events the
types of the greater ones in the future ; you may
invent the doctrine of a double sense, under which,
when one thing is said another thing is meant ; or you
may devise some other solution, but you must do
something. For myself I freely say, that, having re-
flected much upon all these ways, and having tried in
vain to feel satisfied with any other, I can find none
which seems so simple, so accordant with common
sense, so perfectly able to meet all the conditions of

SCOPE OF THE PABOUSIA. 79

the problem, and to exalt and honor our Lord himself,
as that which regards the Parousia as covering a vast
period of duration, beginning with the generation
when he was on earth, and lasting long enough to
include all those great events which are to make up
the history of time.

We find thus, independently of the meaning of the
word and of the declared time of its occurrence,
evidence in its predicted duration confirming the view
I have advanced as to its nature. The Parousia is
not something pertaining to a point, but to a vast
space of time. It is not an event, but a dispensation.
Like the ocean expanse, embosoming within it widely
distant mountain ranges whose tops alone appear above
the surface, its shores are the boundaries of time.
It may be studded with myriads of particular events
called comings,^ like the isles of the sea, but they are
all within the one common ocean. To say that because
this or that great event has not yet happened — even
to the resurrection and the judgment — the Parousia
itself has not begun, is as if a voyager at Hawaii
should say that, because he has not yet reached Hong
Kong, he has not therefore yet embarked upon the
Pacific.

a Says the learned Vitringa, " Venire dicitur Cliristus in nubi-
bus coeli, quoties gloriam majestatemque suam in singulari-
bus gratiae, severitatis, et potentiae suae effectis demonstrat, et
se ecclesiae quasi praesentem exhibet." (Christ is said to come
in the clouds of heaven as often as he shows forth his glory and
majesty in the particular operations of his grace, severity, and
power, and exhibits himself to the church as if present).

CHAPTER V.

THE COSTUME OF THE PAROUSIA.

How, then, can the views now exhibited as to the na-
ture, the time, and the duration of the Parousia, be made
to harmonize with the representations of the Scriptures
of the manner in which it should take place. It is de-
clared that it should be attended with sublime physical
phenomena ; the darkening of the sun and moon, the
fall of the stars, the burning of the world, the pass-
ing away of the heavens with a great noise, etc. Did
all these things happen eighteen hundred years ago?

In order to answer this inquiry, it is necessary to
consider what was the meaning of this language in the
prophetic Scriptures, and in the usage of the Jews of
Christ's day.

These representations are of two kinds, referring to
two distinct things, identical indeed in time but
wholly different in their nature ; viz. the establishment
of the new kingdom of heaven^ and the abolition of the
old,

SECTION I.
THE IMAGERY OF INAUGURATION.

Christ was to come for the purpose of establishing
the new kingdom of heaven, and of being inaugurated
as its King. How should this event be fittingly set
forth to the apprehension of mankind ?

THE COSTUME OF THE PAB0U8IA. 81

The idea of divine manifestations to men had been
familiar to the Jews from the earliest times. To
Abraham and Lot, to Isaac and Jacob, God appeared,
usually in a human form, — the "Angel-Jehovah" —
speaking, eating, and in one case even wrestling, after
the manner of men. To Moses in the desert he reveal-
ed himself in the burning bush. These, however,
were, so to speak, private manifestations. Impressive
as they were to the individuals that received them,
they were confined to their personal experience, and
could have had no wide effect upon the world at large.
It was necessary, therefore, in order to establish his
special government over a nation, and insure from
them the reverence and obedience due to him as their
King and Lord, that he should make a public, visible
demonstration of his existence, and power, and majesty.
That demonstration took place at Mt. Sinai.

Every circumstance that could add to its sublimity
was gathered around the scene. The people, by a three
months' journey, were led apart from the rest of man-
kind into the highest, most secluded recesses of the
mountains. There, in a broad ravine, shut in on all
sides by lofty granite peaks gray with time and splin-
tered and seamed by the storms of ages, they were
commanded to prepare for a personal interview with
their God. Three days are spent in sanctifying them-
selves for the great occasion. Around the base of the
huge precipice which God was to make his throne, a
line was drawn, beyond which none might pass on pain
of instant death. It is for an inspired pen alone to
describe what followed : —
5

82 THE PAROUSIA.

" It came to pass on the third day in the morning,
that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick
cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet
exceeding loud ; so that all the people that was in the
camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people
out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at
the nether part of the mount. And Mount Sinai was
altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended
upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as
the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked
greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded
long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and
God answered him by a voice." Ex. 19 : 16-20.

The narrative does not state by whom the trumpet
was blown, but elsewhere we learn that Jehovah was
attended by a countless retinue of angels. In Deut.
33 : 2, it is said, " He came with ten thousands of his
saints," i. e., holy ones. " From his right hand went
forth a fiery law for them." The Septuagint has here,
" At his right hand the angels with him." In Ps. 68 :
18 we read, " The chariots of God are twenty thousand,
even thousands of angels ; the Lord is among them as
in Sinai, in the holy place." To the Galatians Paul
says the law was "ordained by — i. e., through the
medium of — angels," (ch. 3 : 19); and to the Hebrews
that it was "spoken by angels." Ch. 2 : 2.

This scene was doubtless the most awe-inspiring that
ever addressed itself to the eye of mortals. " So ter-
rible was the sight," said Paul, " that even Moses said,
I exceedingly fear and quake."" Heb. 12: 21. It in-
vested the theocratic system then established with a

THE COSTUME OF THE PABOUSIA. 83

sanctity and authority transcending all human enact-
ments. Often was it referred to by their teachers as
bringing the nation under the most solemn obligations
to obedience, and at the same time, as conferring on
them the highest honor. " Ask now," said Moses, " of
the days that are passed, which were before thee, since
the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask
from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether
there hath been any such thing as this great thing is,
or hath been heard like it. Did ever people hear the
voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as

thou hast heard, and live ? Out of heaven he made

thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee,
and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire ; and thou
heardest his voice out of the midst of the fire." Deut.
4 : 33-36. The proto-martyr Stephen, in that recita-
tion of the nation's history which so cut them to the
heart and maddened them to murder, charged upon
them that notwithstanding they had received the law
" by the disposition of angels," God's ministers at
Sinai, they had failed to keep it. And Josephus de-
scribes even the able but impious Herod, while engaged
in a war with the Arabians who had murdered his
embassadors, as stimulating the ardor of his soldiers
by reminding them that they had received their law
through the ministry of angels, who might be regard-
ed as God's embassadors to mankind. Ant. 15: 5. 3.

Here, then, was the source of that peculiar imagery
which ever after was wont to be used in describing the
divine manifestations to man, and sometimes even of
the ordinary operations of Providence. The Lord

84 THE PAB0U8JA.

comes in the clouds, amid lightnings and thunders ;
angels in their shining ranks attend him ; the moun-
tains shake at his presence ; and his awful voice is
heard uttering law and judgment for the world. A
remarkable example of this diction occurs in the
eighteenth Psalm, the superscription of which informs
us that it was a commemorative offering of praise for
the Psalmist's deliverance " from the hand of all his
enemies and from the hand of Saul." " He bowed
the heavens and came down, and darkness was under
his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly ; yea
he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made
darkness his secret place ; his pavilion round about him
were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. At
the brightness that was before him his thick clouds
passed, — hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also
thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his
voice, — hailstones and coals of fire." Of course, we
are not to understand that all this actually occurred
in a literal or material sense ; it is simply the portrayal
of almighty power interposing for the deliverance of
David. The real methods in which this was done are
shown in the history, which makes no mention of any
thing supernatural. It is, in a word, the language of
costume, the full force of which consists in its convey-
ing the idea of irresistible supreme power.

It is a curious fact, worthy of mention here, that
this inauguration of Jehovah as the peculiar sovereign
of the Hebrews has been made the pattern after which
earthly kings have ordered the ceremonies of their
own coronation. Arrayed in royal vestments, with a

THE COSTUME OF THE PAROUSIA. 85

brilliant retinue of grandees, and an imposing display
of his troops, the new sovereign comes forth, with a
herald blowing a trumpet before him, and the shouts
of the multitudes crying, "God save the king." See
the story of the accession of Solomon (1 Kings 1 :
38, 39), and of Jehu, 2 Kings 9 : 13. Even in modern
times, the like ceremonial is observed at the coronation
of British sovereigns, — the blowing of the trumpet by
the Garter king-at-arms proclaiming the enthroning
of the new monarch, and publishing his titles and
dignities to the world.

It was in terms thus hallowed by association with
the founding of their own divine monarchy, and
familiarized to the Jews as the technical phraseology
denoting the accession of kings to their thrones, — the
court language of inauguration, so to speak — that
Christ described his coming to men in his kingdom.
The one event of their past history most memorable
and sublime was the type of the one event of the
future to which they were taught to look forward with
the intensest interest. The Lord Jesus Christ, now
exalted to his promised throne, should appear in the
clouds of heaven with all the holy angels, resplendent
in flaming fire like the lightnings of Sinai, with a
shout, the voice of an archangel and the trump of God.
And as the Hebrew nation had been gathered in solemn
expectation around the mountain to receive their
King, so before Christ should " be gathered all nations"
(Matt. 25 : 32), to receive law and judgment at his
mouth. The grand type-scene which introduced the
old dispensation lent its glories to grace the grander
antitype that should introduce the new.

86 THE PAROUSIA.

And not only thus was the inauguration of a King
suggested, but that of One in all respects equal in
power and glory to himself. It was claiming not only
the throne, but all the attending insignia which had
bowed the nation in awe and fear at the foot of Mt.
Sinai. If the sublimest phenomena known to nature
could indicate the rank of Him whose coronation they
graced, the throne of Jesus should be no whit inferior
to that of Jehovah. He who in his own person is the
equal of the Father, should be also equal in power
and glory, " that all men might honor the Son even as
they honor the Father."

Was there then to be, in addition to this high sym-
bolic signification, a fulfillment of this language in a
literal sense ? I think not.

For first, there is no evidence that, at this period,
such was its recognized meaning. We have no reason
to suppose that the four disciples who heard our Lord's
words on Olivet so understood him. They were
familiar with the fact that language like this was con-
stantly used by their prophets as mere costume — the
drapery under which divine manifestations were set
forth. Compare Ex. 34 : 5 ; 2 Sam. 22 : 10-12 ; Ps.
50:3; 97:2-5; 104:3; Isa.l9:l; 64:1, 2; Ezek.
1: 4; 10: 4; Dan. 7: 13. They knew that God's
deliverance of David from his enemies was not attend-
ed by actual earthquakes, an awful form seated on a
flying cherub, surrounded by dark clouds from which
shot forth mingled hail and fire. They knew, in a
word, that all this had come to be figurative language,
used to exalt men's impressions of the divine majesty.

TUE COSTUME OF THE PAEOUSIA. 87

When applied by our Lord to his coining, its signifi-
cance lay in the fact that he was to appear as their
long expected Messiah, in a glory befitting his exalted
character, and not less worthy of reverence than He
whose throne had been established amid the sublimi-
ties of Sinai.

So with the apostle Paul. If he had understood
that the day of the Lord was to be introduced by a
visible appearance of Christ in the clouds, why did he
not remind the Thessalonians, who thought the day
had already come,^ that such appearance had not taken
place ? Adventists who are now looking for it make
the fact that no visible coming has yet occurred a proof,
to them absolutely conclusive, that the Parousia is
yet future. Why did not Paul reason in the same
way when he wished to prove the same thing, unless
because neither he nor those to whom he wrote had
any expectation of the kind ?

We are not to forget that the whole Mosaic economy
was but a type and prophecy of the new kingdom of
heaven, which was to be established by the Messiah.^

*It is to be remembered that the phrase "is at hand," in 2
Thess. 2: 2, is in the original " has come." "These Thessalon-
ians," says Alford, "imagined it to be already come."

*> " It necessarily results from the nature of prophecy, that the
kingdom of the Messiah should be represented by metaphors
taken from the Mosaic dispensation, and that the facts as well
as the persons of the former should receive the names of the
latter, which were connected with them by an internal resem-
blance. This mode of representation is founded in the fact that
the Mosaic economy was ordered with distinct reference to the
Christian dispensation, and prefigures it." Hengstenberg's
Christology. Yol. I, p. 231.

88 THE PAROUSIA.

This is shown at great length in the epistle to the
Hebrews. The tabernacle, its rites, its furniture, and
its ministers, were all " figures for the time then pres-
ent"; "shadows of good things to come." And through-
out the whole, the method of teaching was from the
literal to the figurative, from the material to the
spiritual. The sacrificial lamb pointed to the Lamb
of God that was to take away the sin of the world ;
the ministering priest to Him who offered himself once
for all ; circumcision to regeneration ; the sprinkling of
the victim's blood to sanctification by the Holy Ghost ;
the Sabbath to the " rest that remaineth ;" the taber-
nacle to the perfected church in which God shall dwell
forever. Never is the relation otherwise. The material
type is never fulfilled in a material antitype ; bloody
rite has no bloody rite as its counterpart ; no Christian
altar answers to Hebrew altar, no earthly Jerusalem
to the Jerusalem that then was, and was in bondage
with her children. And so, by all the principles of
analogy, as the ancient ritual dispensation was in all
its parts symbolical of the new, which is spiritual, so
its inauguration with material splendors ought to find
its fulfillment in one that is spiritual. To look for
one appealing to the senses is to reverse all the laws of
progress and development in God's revelation to man.
But we have something on the point even more
definite than this. Christ was once " demanded of
the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come."
Luke 17 : 20. He answered them, " The kingdom of
God cometh not with observation," or as it is in the

THE COSTUME OF THE PAROUSIA. 89

margin, " with outward show." * " Neither shall they
say ' Lo there !' — you are not to expect it in one local-
ity or another ^ — for behold the kingdom of God is
within ^ you." It is in the hearts of men that you are
to look for its coming ; it is a spiritual not sensuous
kingdom, such as you anticipate. This clear and
explicit language ought to dispel those gross and carnal
views which look for an imposing temporal kingdom,
established in some earthly locality, and inaugurated
by grand sights and sounds, to make men stare, but
to win no hearts with the majesty of enthroned truth
and love.

SECTION n.
THE IMAGERY OF DESTRUCTION.

The coming of our Lord in his Parousia was not
only to inaugurate the new dispensation — the kingdom
of heaven — but to abolish the old. The old, indeed,
had been intended as a preparation for the new, out
of which the latter, in the fullness of time, was to
unfold, as the perfect flower from the bud which had

*"So that its progress may be watched with the eyes." Rob-
inson's Lex. sub voce. " None shall be able to point here or there
for a proof of its coming." Alford. "What attracts observa-
tion." Bloomfield. "Every thing that excites observation."
Olshausen.

^ " The Saviour withdraws the kingdom of God wholly from
the local and phenomenal world, and transfers it to the world
of spirit." lb.

^ There is a difference of opinion among commentators
whether the words entos humon mean within you or among you.
The sense is substantially the same either way.

90 THE PAROUSIA,

inclosed and protected it. But now, through the
grossness of the nation's heart, it had become the chief
hinderance to the new, — its stony prison instead of its
fostering womb. Therefore it became necessary that
the former should be utterly destroyed, which could
be effected only by destroying the temple which had
been its shrine, and the city and nation which clung to
it with an idolatrous reverence. Hence a second class
of imagery used in describing the event, derived from
those natural phenomena, which, among unscientific
people, have always inspired most awe and fear.

Foremost among these are eclipses of the sun and
moon. To this day, millions of men go into agonies
of terror when these happen. Showers of falling
meteors, or as they are popularly called, shooting stars,
are of the same class, and the recent discovery of the
fact that these are periodical proves that they must
have been of frequent occurrence before the Christian
era. Earthquakes are the terror of every age. Fierce
tempests have ever prevailed, especially in warm
climates, in which, amid the incessant flashes of light-
ning and roar of thunder, it needs no stretch of imagi-
nation to believe that the heavens are passing away
with a great noise and the elements melting with fer-
vent heat, while the dense masses of whirling clouds
seem to be the rolling together of the firmament like
a scroll. And then the clearing up that follows ! — the
sun bursting forth in new splendor from the depths of
the serene blue, and the freshness and fragrance and
peace that breathe over the smiling landscape prompt
the admiring exclamation, " Behold new heavens and
a new earth !"

THE COSTUME OF THE PAB0U8IA. 91

Now we can make no greater mistake than to inter-
pret the imagery in the Bible derived from these sources
after the methods of thought which prevail in our
day.^ Remember that the Jews were Orientals, born
under the brilliant skies of the East, and living many
centuries before the birth of what we call science.
They looked upon and spoke of natural phenomena
as they appeared to the senses. With them the blue
concave of the sky was a solid crystalline sphere called
the " firmament," the sun, moon, and stars were fixed
in that firmament, like gems in their sockets, and
revolved with it once a day. The earth was a vast plain
built upon solid foundations, and surrounded upon its
outer margin by the floods. The rains descended
through windows in the firmament ; earthquakes were
the shaking of the pillars on which the earth rests ;
volcanoes were the flowing down of the mountains

* When all the books of the New Testament were written by
Jews and among Jews and unto them, and when all the dis-
courses made there were made, in like manner, by Jews and to
Jews and among them, I was always fully persuaded, as a thing
past all doubting, that that Testament could not but every
where taste of and retain the Jews' style, idiom, and rule of
speaking. And hence, in the second place, I concluded as as-
suredly that in the obscurer places of that Testament (which
are very many) the best and most natural method of searching
out the sense is to inquire how and in what sense those phrases
and manners of speech were understood, according to the vul-
gar and common dialect and opinion of that nation, and how
they took them by whom they were spoken and by whom they
were heard. For it is no matter what we can beat out concern-
ing those manners of speech on the anvil of our own conceit,
but what they signified among them in their ordinary sense
and speech." Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. vol. 11, pp. 3, 4.

92 TUB PABOUSIA.

under the wrath of God. The oriental mind, grasp-
ing these phenomena with a vivid imagination,
wrought them into many forms of glowing imagery
to denote whatever was grand or terrific. The Jews
were not alone in this, but the same thing was true of
all the Eastern nations, Greek, Egyptian, Persian,
Indian, — of all indeed that have left us a literature.

But we, in these western lands and in modern times,
have become as highly philosophical and practical.
We have trained ourselves to look beyond appearances,
and investigate ultimate principles and facts. We
have learned astronomy and geology. We know that
the sky is not solid ; that the heavenly bodies are not
luminous disks fastened to it ; and that the earth is
not a plain and has no foundations. To us nature
and the universe are totally unlike what they were to
the ancients. We neither conceive nor speak of them
in the same way. Our words are scientific, literal ;
after the reality and not the appearance. For us then
to interpret ancient language like our own is to plunge
into endless incongruity and error. It would be like
painting the ancients themselves in modern costume,
and making them talk like Prof. Huxley.^ It is to

*"The walls of the chapel [in the church of Santa Maria
Novella in Florence] were to be filled from top to bottom with
compositions. They are representations of biblical events.
That is to say, the names of the different pictures are so called ,
but in truth we are looking at groups of known and unknown
Florentine beauties and celebrities, men, women, and children,
placed together just as circumstances demanded, in the cos-
tume of the period, and in a manner as if that which the picture
signified had occurred a few days before in the streets of Flor-
ence, or in one of the most well known houses. Rembrandt

THE COSTUME OF THE PAROUSIA. 93

repeat the folly which condemned Galileo for heresy
because he asserted that the earth moved, and has
done so much to make scientific skeptics in our own
day. It is only when we let the sacred writers speak
in their own way, and understand their words as they
and their contemporaries did, that we shall learn the
truth, as the Holy Spirit designed to give it.

Such were the sources of the imagery which the
Hebrew prophets had always been accustomed to
employ in predicting the divine judgments upon cities
and nations. Look at the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah,
which is entitled " The burden of Babylon," and
observe in what language the destruction of that city
is described. " Behold the day of the Lord cometh,
cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the
land desolate ; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof
out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constella-
tions thereof shall not give their light ; the sun shall
be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not
cause her light to shine. — I will shake the heavens,
and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the
wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his

fierce anger. Behold I will stir up the Medes

against them," etc.

makes Mary sit in a stable representing a Dutch cow-house of
his time, while Raphael gives her accommodations in old Roman
walls, such as he daily passed by." Grimm's Life of Michael
Angelo, vol. 1, p. 87.

Of the same school was the genius that painted Abraham's
servants, in their pursuit of the robbers who had carried off Lot
and his family, as armed with muskets ! I have seen a picture
representing Christ's resurrection, showing an old fashioned
Yankee meeting-house with steeple and bell standing near by.

94 THE PABOUSIA.

Take the twenty-fourth chapter, which is a predict-
ion of the earlier capture of Jerusalem and the devas-
tation of Palestine, by Sennacherib. " Behold the
Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,
and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the

inhabitants thereof. The earth is utterly broken

down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved
exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a
drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, and
the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it ; and

it shall fall and not rise again. Then the moon

shall be confounded and the sun ashamed, when the
Lord of hosts shall reign on Mount Zion, and in Jeru-
salem, and before his ancients gloriously."

Still more striking is the announcement, in the thirty-
fourth chapter, of the divine judgments upon the land
of Idumea. " All the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll ;
and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off
from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree.
For my sword shall be bathed in heaven ; behold it

shall come down upon Idumea," etc. " For it is the

day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recom-
penses for the controversy of Zion. And the streams
thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof
into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burn-
ing pitch ; it shall not be quenched night nor day ; the
smoke thereof shall go up forever."

Nor was language like this confined to one prophet ;
it was the common usage of all. See how Ezekiel —
ch. 32 — threatens Pharaoh, king of Egypt, with an

THE COSTUME OF THE PABOUSIA. 95

overthrow by Babylon. " And when I shall put thee
out, I will cover the heaven and make the stars there-
of dark ; I will cover the sun with a cloud and the
moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights
of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set dark-
ness upon thy land, saith the Lord God."

The prophet Joel denounces a plague of locusts
upon Palestine in the following terms, (ch. 2). ''Blow
ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy
mountain ; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.
— — The earth shall quake before them ; the heavens
shall tremble ; the sun and the moon shall be dark,
and the stars shall withdraw their shining. And the
Lord shall utter his voice before his army," etc. And
the same prophet, speaking of the period immediately
before the Parousia of Christ, employs similar language,
which Peter on the day of pentecost quotes and
expressly declares has reference to the events then
transpiring. " This is that which was spoken by the
prophet Joel. It shall come to pass afterward that I

will pour out my Spirit, etc. And I will show

wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and
fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned
into darkness and the moon into blood before the great
and terrible day of the Lord come." Joel 2 : 28-31.

With these words of the grand old prophets, then,
ringing in our ears, let us go out with the disciples to
Olivet and listen to the Master, a greater prophet than
they, as he describes to us that Parousia which was to
be initiated by the destruction of the beloved city

96 THE PAROUSIA.

and temple and nation. From our infancy we have
been taught these words of doom, and have heard them
read in the synagogue service, with the record of their
fulfillment, as the prophetic vernacular for the over-
throw of wicked cities and nations. A half hour ago
we heard him pronounce those awful words upon that
guilty generation ; and from the olive-clad slopes we
look yonder upon that glittering pile of marble and
gold of which he has said there shall not be one stone
left upon another. And when, in answer to our
astonished inquiry as to the time and the signs of the
catastrophe, we hear him say, " The sun shall be dark-
ened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the
stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken " — what is it but the familiar
language of prophecy telling us that like as Babylon
and Egypt and Idumea, so Jerusalem and the Hebrew
nation shall be overthrown? Will any thought of
sensible, material phenomena occur to us, any more
than in connection with those ancient judgments on
wicked nations, — especially when the same voice imme-
diately adds : " Verily I say unto you, this generation
shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled ?"

So with the language of Paul, the disciple of Gam-
aliel and learned in all the Jewish law, when he
assured the Thessalonians that " the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in
flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not
God." So with the kindred language of Peter, the
apostle of the circumcision, writing to churches of
converted Jews, that " the heavens shall pass away

THE COSTUME OF THE PAROUSIA. 97

with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up," '' — what was all this but
the phraseology customarily applied to classes of
events which had many times before happened, and
which were then about to be repeated? And now
looking back upon it after a lapse of more than
eighteen hundred years, what difficulty have we in
saying that it was all fulfilled in the overthrow of the
sacred city and nation, and of that renowned system
of institutions which for fifteen centuries had borne
the impress of divine authority, any more than the
similar denunciations against Egypt and Babylon and
Idumea and other oppressors of God's people ? We
do not argue that because the sun, moon, and stars
were not extinguished and the earth dashed out of her
orbit, on that night when Belshazzar was slain, there-
fore Babylon was not then taken and its destruction
is still to be looked for. Why should we reason thus
in regard to that more stupendous judgment which
came upon the city which had crucified the Lord and
become the bloody persecutor of the saints ?

I shall doubtless be told by those who have been

» He sets forth the destruction of that cursed nation and their
city in those terms that Christ hath done (Matt. 24) and that
the Scripture doth elsewhere (Deut. 32: 22-24; Jer. 4: 23,)
namely as the destruction of the whole world, the heavens pass-
ing away, the elements melting, and the earth burned up. And
accordingly, he speaks of a new heaven and a new earth, from
Isa. 65: 17 — anew state of the church under the gospel among
the Gentiles when this old world of the Jews' state should be
dissolved. Lightfoot on 2 Peter.

98 THE P A no U SI A.

accustomed to more sensuous interpretations of the
Scripture that I am detracting from the awful gran-
deur with which they invest the coming of the Lord.
But it seems to me far otherwise. For is not the
spiritual ever greater than the material ? Did the
angels who sang over the creation of the world deem
the birth of one little babe in a herdsman's stall at
Bethlehem an event of less magnitude, or less worthy
to be celebrated with heaven's highest anthems ?

" 'Twas great to call a world from nought ;
'Twas greater to redeem."

To blot out the sun and stars ; to display a shining form
amid the clouds ; to shake the heavens with crashing
thunderbolts ; to let loose the imprisoned fires of the
earth and melt it again to ancient chaos, is but to exer-
cise a physical omnipotence, the lowest form of power,
but to set up a kingdom of holiness in the hearts of a
sinful race, a kingdom of ideas and principles regnant
over the free wills of men, which in the face of every
motive natural to the corrupt heart, or originating in
an evil world, or urged by the prince of darkness,
holds on its conquering way from age to age, subduing
not only individual souls, but opinions, customs, laws,
philosophies, and all the forces that move society and
the world, is to exert a grander power, an omnipotence
of a higher nature, and ampler resources, and a more
god-like beneficence. It is only because we are so
much creatures of sense, and have attained to so little
spiritual discernment, that we are ever most impressed
with outward glare and noise.

Let me refer to an event of our own day. A plain

THE COSTUME OF THE PAROVSIA. 99

man, in a quiet apartment, takes his pen and in a few
simple words makes four millions of slaves free !
How does the whole world thrill with the sublimity of
that act of justice I Gather all the grand physical
phenomena of these eighteen centuries, — all the eclipses
and star-showers and volcanic eruptions and earth-
quakes and tempests, and how much less do they all
together signify than this ! How much less thought
of and talked about ; how much less have they affected
the destinies of men and of nations ; how much smaller
the space they will occupy on the page of human
history ! No, — thoughts, principles, truths, are alone
sublime. If we had a spiritual language which was
the pure efflux and fitting expression of spiritual ideas,
we should never have had to come down to matter
and sense to find words to set forth the glory of Christ's
Presence among men. Let us not, because we are
thus compelled, insist that the material and sensuous
is greater than the spiritual. No outward event of
history was ever so sublime as the inauguration scene
at Sinai. And yet says the apostle, " If the ministra-
tion of death written and engraven on stones was glo-
rious, so that the children of Israel could not stead-
fastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his
countenance, which glory was to be done away, how
shall not the ministration of the Spirit — the introduc-
tion and carrying forward of the spiritual kingdom of
Christ — be rather glorious?"

PART II.

CHRIST AS KING

Thus was Christ's Parousia to be commenced among
men. He who first came in the flesh in a state of
humiliation and suffering, to die a shameful death as a
sacrifice for sin, was now to come a second time in
glory and establish henceforth his abiding Presence
with his people. And the whole course of human
affairs thereafter, both prophetic, as delineated in the
Scriptures, and providential, as developed in the
history of the church and the world, was what should
occur under that Presence.

The outline of that history is, I conceive, comprehen-
sively sketched in the closing part of our Lord's great
discourse on the Mount of Olives. Having stated so
fully the signs and the time of his coming he proceeds
to describe the purpose of it, in other words what
shall he when he comes.

I beg leave to protest here against the treatment
to which this discourse is so generally subjected by
severing the concluding portion, in Matt. 2f: 31-46,
from the rest, and interposing between the two an
interval of time of unknown ages. The reason for

100

CHRIST AS KING. 101

this, of course, is because it is assumed that the latter
portion relates solely to the general judgment, at the
end of the world. But no assumption, I submit, can
warrant a procedure which is a violation of the very
plainest principles of interpretation. The unity of
every discourse ought to be presumed unless there are
8ome clear proofs that the author intended otherwise.
Nothing of the sort appears here. So entirely are all
marks or indications wanting of a change from the sub-
ject with which our Lord began, that of the numerous
commentators who insist that the change was made,
almost no two agree as to the place of it.

Besides, the subject in its very terms continues the
same, viz., the coming of the Lord in glory, nor is
there the least intimation that it is not that coming
the date of which should be in that existing genera-
tion. Nay, the concluding portion of the discourse
is expressly linked to the former portion by the con-
jiective words "when" and "then," which forbid
the supposition that two eras are intended. " When
the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all
the holy angels with him, then shall he sit," etc.
Compare similar expressions elsewhere. " If I depart
I will send the Comforter unto you ; and ivhen he is
come, he will reprove the world of sin," etc. Will
not that be at the time of his coming ? "I will come
by you into Spain." " And I am sure that when I
come unto you I shall come in the fullness of the
blessing of the gospel of Christ." Rom. 15 : 28. Had
the apostle different periods in his mind when he wrote
this ? Surely not. Without the supposed necessity,

102 THE PABOUSIA.

derived from the language employed, of referring this
part of it to the future, no one would have thought, on
exegetical grounds, of thus treating a discourse which
has throughout the most logical and closely compact-
ed structure. I trust it will be shown that even such
application of it does not render that treatment neces-
sary.

Christ's Presence then in the world, beginning in
that generation and set forth under imagery so im-
posing, was to be the presence of its King. " Then
shall he sit upon the throne of his glory." The phrase
" to sit upon " is the appropriate one to denote acces-
sion to power, as when we familiarly say of a monarch,
" He ascends the throne." It is not that he assumes
that dignity to perform a single work only, viz., the
judgment, but it is to begin a reign which it is else-
where declared shall have no end. This is that " king-
dom of heaven " which had been so long and so fondly
anticipated ; the one described by Daniel, whose sub-
lime prophecy, we cannot doubt, was the prototype of
the scene here depicted by Christ himself. " I saw in
the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man
came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the
Ancient of days and tliey brought him near before
him. And there was given him dominion and glory
and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages,
should serve him ; his dominion is an everlasting do-
minion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed."

CHAPTER I.

CHRIST'S ACCESSION TO THE THRO:NrE.

This is expressly affirmed to have taken place at
his ascension. Mark 16 : 19. " After the Lord had
spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven,
and sat on the right hand of Grody It was the well-
known expression employed in the second Psalm to
signify the exaltation of the promised Messiah to his
royal dignity as King in Zion. The same fact was
affirmed by Peter on the day of pentecost (Acts 2 :
33), and by Stephen as revealed to his direct vision
immediately before his martyrdom. Acts 7 : b^). In
the epistles also it is repeatedly declared. Heb. 1 :
3. " Who — when he had by himself purged our sins
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
Heb. 10 : 12. " This man after he had offered one
sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand
of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies
be made his footstool." Heb. 8:1. " We have such
a high priest who is set on the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in the heavens." Heb. 12 : 2.
" And is set down at the right hand of the tlnrone of
God." 1 Pet. 3 : 22. " Who is gone into heaven,
and is on the right hand of God ; angels and authori-
ties and powers being made subject unto him." Phil.
2 : 9-11. " God hath highly exalted him, and given

103

104 THE PAR0U8IA.

a name which is above every name ; that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven,
and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Eph. 1 : 20-
23. " He raised him from the dead, and set him at
his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above
all principality, and power, and might, and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in this world
but also in that which is to come ; and hath put all
things under his feet, and gave him to be the head
over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fullness of Him that filleth all in all."

These and many more passages of a similar charac-
ter clearly establish the fact that Christ's actual as-
sumption of his throne took place at the time indica-
ted, viz., within that generation. In other words, his
reign then began.

Hence it follows that we are not to look for another
beginning of it in the future. Whatever enlargement
there may be of it, whatever new accessions of power
and glory, they will not be the introduction of a new
kingdom, but epochs in one already established.
There is but one kingdom of Christ ; that has begun,
and is not to be begun again.

It follows further, that the place of his throne, the
capital — so to speak — of his kingdom, is in heaven.
The language I have cited, it seems to me, is entirely
incompatible with the idea of a visible, temporal reign
of Christ on earth. We do not indeed know where
heaven is ; if locality is to be predicated of what is so

CHBISrS ACCESSION TO THE THBONE. 105

purely spiritual ; it may be near to or remote from the
earth ; but so much at least is certain that it is in the
invisible sphere. Heaven, the right hand of God, the
majesty on high, the heavenly places, are not in this
world of sense. It is in them that Christ is en-
throned ; there he is set down forever. He will not
change that throne for one in Jerusalem; he will not
remove from the invisible and celestial sphere to a
visible and terrestrial one.

CHAPTER II.

CHRIST COMING IN HIS KINGDOM.

It has been shown in a previous chapter that the
word coming can only be used of a divine being in
the sense of manifestation. The accession of our Lord
to his throne, at his ascension, was speedily followed
by that wonderful event which first disclosed to men
his kingly power, and initiated among them his visi-
ble kingdom.

"Next to the appearance of the Son of God on
earth," says Neander, "this was the greatest event, as
the commencing point of the new divine life, proceed-
ing from him to the human race, which has since
spread and operated through successive ages, and will
continue to operate until its final object is attained,
and all mankind are transformed into the image of
Christ." P. & T., p. 18.

The day of Pentecost, — the day which commem-
orated the giving of the law at Sinai, and the institu-
tion of the first kingdom of heaven — had come. Je-
rusalem was full of people, — not its own citizens alone,
but from all parts of Palestine and surrounding coun-
tries, who had come hither to attend the national festi-
val. Suddenly a sound is heard, as of a mighty tem-
pest, filling the city with alarm, and causing a vast
concourse to run together. Lambent flames descend

106

CHRIST COMING IN HIS KINGDOM. 107

and rest on the heads of the apostles, and with loud
voices they speak in languages they had never learned.
It was a stupendous phenomenon, and no wonder the
thoughtful were amazed and were in doubt, saying
one to another, " What meaneth this ? " Then Peter,
filled with the Holy Ghost, stands forth and explains
the event. " The days are come," said he, " predict-
ed by Joel ; the Spirit of God is poured out ; the won-
ders in heaven and signs on the earth appear, mark-
ing the close of the old age and the beginning of the
new ; Jesus, whom ye crucified, has ascended to his
throne, and hath shed forth this which ye see and
hear ; that all the house of Israel may assuredly know
that God hath made him both Loed and Messiah."
How thrilling these words, addressed to that awe-
stricken crowd! Three thousand were convinced,
and accepted, on the spot, their manifested king.

A few days afterward, the lame man, lying at the
Beautiful Gate, was healed ; and the apostles being
called to account for the fact again referred it to the
power of the risen and glorified Jesus, and besought
the people to repent, that the days of refreshing, of
which this was but a twilight gleam, might fully come,
and the Lord might return in his power to bless them
and all nations. Being released from their confine-
ment, they seek again the society of the believers, and
together sing the second Psalm, the coronation anthem
of the Messiah, who was thus manifesting himself in
power as the Saviour and King of men.

But another and different exhibition of that power
was needed amid these beginnings of the Messianic

108 THE PABOUSIA.

days. We have seen that Christ was to reign in the
two-fold capacity of king and judge ; not merely to
bestow blessings upon his friends, but to destroy and
punish his enemies. Just then happened the sad
episode of Ananias and Sapphira, by which was shown
that the newly enthroned Lord whom they worshiped
was arrayed in frowns for the false and disobedient,
and that no scheme of sin could deceive his omnis-
cience or presume on his indulgence.

Thus, then, it was that Christ began to come in his
kingdom. A new power began to be felt among men,
confounding the politicians and rulers of that day, —
one which no decrees could arrest, no cunning plots
could circumvent, no force could resist. That power
made itself visible and tangible, not indeed to the out-
er senses of men, but to their spiritual apprehensions,
producing effects which all the eclat of his bodily
presence and of his innumerable miracles wrought in
the flesh had failed to achieve. Still as yet no out-
ward kingdom was set up. The converts did not
leave the national synagogues or temple ; they kept
the feasts, observed the seventh-day Sabbath, circum-
cised their children, and were in all visible seeming
Jews, still under the forms of the ancient aion^ and
still accustomed to expect and to speak of the aion to
come. One more great event was requisite to com-
plete the Lord's advent, to establish his Parousia, and
give a visible inauguration of his kingdom.

And such event happened, just as he had said it
would, in that generation. Jerusalem, the city of
David, the capital of the Jewish state, with its sacred

CHRIST COMING IN HIS KINGDOM. 109

temple, the shrine and sanctuary of the Jewish church,
was laid low. A siege, the most bloody that the pen
of history was ever called to describe, attended with
horrors which no pen could adequately depict, yet in
its minutest details singularly fulfilling a long line of
ancient prophecies, — a siege in which, according to
Josephus, a million and a quarter of people perished,
ended forever the ancient dispensation, both as a civil
and religious system. Then it was that the Christian
church, emerging from the ashes of the old theocracy,
and armed alike with miraculous power, and the faith
and zeal of that martyr age, went forth on its appoint-
ed mission to subdue the world to her King. Then it
was that the kingdom of God came with power, and
Christ came in his kingdom. The world looked with
dismay upon that tragedy, and though many were too
blinded by ignorance and unbelief to discern its full
import, yet ever^ eye did see it (Rev. 1:7); and since
then, for eighteen hundred years, the gaze of the world
has rested upon it, as the clear showing forth of the
awful majesty of Christ, the rejected King of the
Jews, yet none the less the Lord, the Judge, who thus
came to men in the glory of his Father, and began
among them that kingdom which is ultimately to sub-
due all other kingdoms and fill the earth with his
glory.

In this view of the matter, there is no difficulty in
the fact that the apostles and others who lived in the
period between the day of Pentecost and the over-
throw of Jerusalem spoke of the coming and king-
dom as still future. It was so in its outward and

110 TEE PAROUBIA,

most imposing aspects ; but in its germ and principles
it had already commenced. Both forms of speech,
therefore, were not inappropriate. " This is that
spoken of by Joel," said Peter, "the sun shall be
turned into darkness, and the moon into blood," yet
twenty years later he could also say, " Nevertheless
we, according to his promise, look for new heavens
and a new earth." Though the new kingdom " came "
at the Pentecost, it was also still to " come " at the
grand catastrophe which abolished the old. This is
precisely the same paradox that attends any statement
of the relations of Judaism to Christianity. It will
be admitted by all that the latter was to succeed and
supercede the former. When, then, did the Jewish
institutions cease? We answer when Jerusalem it-
jself was destroyed. Till then, its sacrifices, its ritual,
its festivals, its whole code, ceremonial and civil, were
continued. When did Christianity begin? Forty
years before, we also say, for then began its promul-
gation, its worship and its sacraments. In absolute
doctrinal strictness, we might affirm that Judaism, as
a divine institution, expired with the crucifixion and
resurrection of Jesus, in whom all the ancient types
were fulfilled, and that Christianity began at precise-
ly the same moment. But to outward view and to
popular apprehension, the two for a time co-existed.
The beginning of the new overlapped the close of the
old ; devout men observed both alike, receiving both
circumcision and baptism, celebrating the passover
and the Eucharist, keeping the Sabbath and the Lord's
day, meeting in the synagogue service, yet not for-

CHRIST COMING IN HIS KINGDOM. Ill

saking the assembling of themselves together as be-
lievers in Jesus. Paul himself paid his Nazarite vow
in the temple, and claimed to be a Pharisee ; James
addressed his epistle to the twelve tribes scattered
abroad. By themselves and by the heathen around
them, the Cliristians were generally regarded as Jews,
until persecution compelled them to separate, and
form distinct organizations of their own.*^ So then,
the fact that it was customary for the apostles in that
day to speak of the coming and kingdom of Christ as
still future,^ though very near, is no proof at all that
ill its higher significance it had not already taken
place. It is only because the destruction of Jerusa-
lem made that fact open and palpable to all the world
that the grand epoch was popularly referred to that
date.

It is proper to add also that in this sense of man-
ifestation, the coming of Christ may be regarded as
progressive. Every new disclosure of his kingly pow-
er among men is a new coming to them. It is in this
sense that we are taught to pray daily, " Thy kingdom
come," not implying that in reality it is not yet estab-
lished, but asking that it may come more and more
until its ultimate triumphs are secured in its universal
supremacy over the earth.

* Neander's Planting and Training of the Church, p. 37. Gib-
bon's Decline and Fall, chapter xvi.

^Dr. Craven, in Lange's Com. on Revelation, pp. 93-100,
makes this a principal argument in support of his theory, that
the kingdom of Christ — the true Basileia — has not yet been es-
tablished upon earth, but is still future.

CHAPTER III.

THE KINGDOM LIKE A GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED.

•' It is," said the Lord, " like a grain of mustard
seed, which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when
it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becom-
eth a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge
in the branches thereof." " It is," said he again, " like
unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three
measures of meal till the whole was leavened " (Matt.
13 : 31-33). " It is," once again, " as if a man should
cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and rise
night and day, and the seed should spring up and
grow, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth
forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear,
after that the full corn in the ear " (Mark 4 : 26, 28).
Similar in its import was Daniel's prophetic descrip-
tion— " A stone cut out without hands, which became
a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."

That the manifested kingdom of Christ at its be-
ginning corresponded to these predictions is a historic
fact. Six-score obscure persons, — men and women —
meeting daily in a secluded upper room in Jerusalem,
were all it could boast of on the morning of that mem-
orable Pentecost.

For a long time also, though the number of the be-
lievers was much increased, yet the very fact just men-

112

THE KINGDOM LIKE MUSTARD SEED. 113

tioned, that they did not formally separate themselves
from the national worship, kept them in a good degree
of obscurity. The acute though skeptical Gibbon
dwells upon this as one reason why they so far escaped
the malice of the pagans. " By the wise dispensation
of Providence, a mysterious veil was cast over the in-
fancy of the church which, till the faith of the Chris-
tians was matured and their numbers were multiplied,
served to protect them, not only from the malice but
even from the knowledge of the pagan world. The
slow and gradual abolition of the Mosaic ceremonies
afforded a safe and innocent disguise to the more early
proselytes of the gospel. As they were, for the greater
part, of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished
by the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their
devotions in the temple of Jerusalem till its final
destruction, and received both the law and the proph-
ets as the genuine inspirations of the Deity. The
Gentile converts who, by a spiritual adoption, had
been associated to the hope of Israel, were likewise
confounded under the garb and appearance of Jews>
and as the polytheists paid less regard to articles of
faith than to the external worship, the new sect which
carefully concealed or faintly annoxmced its future
greatness and ambition, w«.s permitted to, shelter itself
under the general tele3:a.tyDn which was granted to an
ancient and cele]pii?a/^:ed people in the Roman empire."^
These facts^ §iriMngly illustrate the saying of our
Lord that ^^^e kingdom of God cometh not with ob-

a Declia^ m!^ Fall, ch^l^. xyil;.

114 THE PAB0U8IA,

servation " (Luke 17 : 20).* And they serve also to
show the error of those who deny that the true king-
dom of the Messiah was that which was begun at the
Pentecost. That kingdom, they say, is still future ;
it is to commence after the conquest of the world to
Christ has been completed, and to be a millennium of
rest and peace. In this view of it there is to be no
period of infancy and weakness ; it is to be ushered
upon the world at once in its noon-day splendor. But
such is not the description which Christ himself gives
of its earliest stage. Like all things having life it be-
gins in the germ ; it is developed by an inward law of
its own, and attains its full strength and glory only in
its maturity.

« Ajate, p. 89, a.

CHAPTER IV.

PERSECUTION.

Scarcely had the new kingdom of heaven been
planted before it was attacked by persecution. If its
weakness shielded it for a time from foreign foes, it
did not avert the malice of its enemies at home. As
its corner stone was laid in the death of its Founder,
so its superstructure was built up and cemented in
the blood of his followers who laid down their lives
for his sake.

This feature of the kingdom had been long predic-
ted and was one of its distinguishing characteristics.
" The kings of the earth," said David, "set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord,
and against his anointed, saying. Let us break their
bands asunder and cast away their cords from us '*
(Ps. 2: 2, 3). "They will deliver you up to the
councils," said Christ, " and they will scourge you in
their synagogues. And ye shall be brought before
governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony
against them and the Gentiles. And ye shall be hated
of all men for my name's sake ; but he that endureth
to the end shall be saved" (Matt. 10: 17). "We
must, through much tribulation, enter into the king-
dom of God " (Acts 14 : 22). " Yea, and all that will
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution "

116

116 THE PAROUSIA.

2 Tim. 3 : 11). Hence another proof that the institu-
tion set up at the day of Pentecost was the true " king-
dom of heaven " that should be inaugurated at Christ's
coming. If that kingdom is still future, — the king-
dom of the so-called millennium — it can never be a
persecuted one, for, by the supposition, the enemies of
its king are then all destroyed.

The prophetic history of these persecutions is given
us in the book of Kevelation. We cannot pretend to
fathom all the mysteries contained in that portion of
the sacred volume, nor is this the place to enter into
the many controverted questions which have been dis-
cussed respecting it. After many years study of it,
I have come very decidedly to the conviction that the
general view of its contents and of the mode of its in-
terpretation presented us in the Commentary of Prof.
Stuart, is, with some modifications, the true one. No
other which I have seen seems so consonant with
sound reason, and with the true principles which
should guide in the exposition of prophecy. I believe
it is growing in favor among the ablest scholars both
in Europe and America.*

The leading design of the Revelation, according to
this view is thus stated. " John wrote to console and
admonish and encourage the churches, then bleeding
at every pore under the glittering weapons of a blood-
%irsty tyrant. And what does he do in order to ac-

a As one of the most recent instances of this fact, I may name
the learned and eloquent Professor Edward Reuss of the Prot-
estant Theological Seminary at Strasbourg, to whose able work
on the "History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age,"
I have several times referred.

PERSECUTION. 117

complish his purpose ? He assures the churches that
this dreadful contest is not always to continue. Ere
long victory will perch on the banners of the cross.
The church will not become extinct by all which ty-
rants can do, but will rise from its ruinous state, will
expand, will fill the world with its triumphs, and pros-
trate in the dust all who lift up a hand against it. To
crown all, he looks with a prophetic eye through the
vista of distant ages, and sees that the setting sun of
the church militant, and the old age of the world in
which it dwells will be glorious ; and finally that the
new Jerusalem will be her abode through ages that
have no end. Short indeed, and mere outlines, are
the descriptions of all that belongs to the distant fu-
ture. But they serve to finish the picture which John
had begun, and thus to complete the measure of con-
solation and encouragement which he designed to
administer." Vol. 1, pp. 207, 208.

Before I attempt to illustrate this view of the Rev-
elation in its application to the subject before us, let
us glance for a moment at the records of actual his-
tory as to the persecutions which have in fact been
waged against Christianity.

Those persecutions have sprung, for the most part,
from three sources, Jewish, Pagan, and Mohammedan.
I do not include the dissensions which have arisen with-
in the Christian body, between different branches or
sects, which, though resulting too often in bloodshed,
cannot be designated as assaults upon Christianity
itself. Nor would I be understood as comprehending
every local or casual outbreak of hostility which has

118 THE PAROUSIA.

been encountered by the gospel in its progress during
these eighteen centuries. The classification is general,
yet embracing within it all that has sufficient impor-
tance to be named in such a connection.

The first of these persecutions was waged by Ju-
daism, the ancient and now apostate theocracy, which
blinded by spiritual pride, and eagerly looking for a
sensuous kingdom which should restore its former
prestige, rejected and attempted to destroy the real
kingdom which God had promised. I need not dwell
upon its details ; they are recorded in the New Testa-
ment, and are familiar to all readers. Beginning with
the crucifixion of its own Messiah, this malignant per-
secutor pursued the infant church with relentless
hostility for forty years, till its career was cut short
by its own retributive destruction.

The second was inflicted by Paganism, then en-
throned on the seven hills of imperial Rome. The
ancient policy of the mistress of the world toward
different religions had been one of toleration, and no
sect was molested by law so long as it did not inter-
fere with the public peace. ^ But this policy under
the lawless cruelty of the emperor Nero was abandon-
ed. Detected in his wanton crime of setting the city
on fire, he meanly sought to avert odium from himself
by charging the crime upon the Christians, and pro-
ceeded accordingly to let loose upon them the most
fearful outrages. From that time till the abdication
of Diocletian, A. D., 303, historians commonly reckon

^Mosheim, Ecc. Hist., 1, 1, 8.

PERSECUTION. 119

ten such persecutions,* in which both at Rome and in
the provinces every effort possible was put forth to ex-
tirpate the new religion, but in vain. The heroic
constancy of the sufferers proved the most effective
preaching of its doctrines, and it soon passed into a
proverb that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of
the church.

The third general assault upon Christianity was
from Mohammedanism. The founder of this great
religious power, indeed, both inculcated and practiced
toleration. He recognized Christ as a true prophet,
and the Scriptures as a revelation from God, and
though his faith was propagated by the sword, yet its
violence was turned against pagans and idolaters
rather than against Jews or Christians.^ Even the two
great Saracen empires of the Caliphs in the East and
the Moors in the West, though often at war with the
Christian nations, had little ability to molest the church
as a whole. So long as Rome, now professedly at least
a Christian empire, maintained its power, Christianity
was safe under its protection. It was not until the four-
teenth century, upon the rise of the Ottoman Empire
of the Turks, who captured Constantinople and over-
ran the larger portions of Asia and Europe, that the
Crescent acquired domination over the Cross. Thence-

*" The ancient history of the church does not support precise-
ly this number, for if we reckon only the general or more severe
persecutions they were fewer than ten ; but if we include the
provincial and more limited persecutions, the number will be
much greater than ten." — Mosheim Ecc. Hist., 1, 5, 4.

^ See this subject fully treated in Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
Chapter II.

120 THE PAR0U8IA.

forward the scenes of the ancient persecutions were
renewed ; the most inhuman cruelties were practiced
upon those who were denounced as infidels and dogs.
They were robbed, were sold into slavery, and
butchered without mercy, until the name of Turk
became the synonym of all that was feared or ab-
horred throughout Christendom.

Taking then as our guide these known facts in the
actual history of persecution, let us see what light
they throw upon the interpretations of its prophetic
history as given us in this book.

SECTION I.
JUDAISM.

The Jewish persecution is represented by our Lord
in his discourse on Olivet as preceding the destruction
of Jerusalem. We cannot doubt that the same predic-
tion, in an expanded form, is set forth in the Apocalypse,
chaps, vi.-xi. Nor is this conviction at all shaken by
the objection that the book may have been written
after that catastrophe. This is a question in regard
to which there are and doubtless will continue to be
different opinions. It is freely acknowledged that the
weight of external testimony is in favor of the later
date ; while the internal evidence seems even more
decisively to point to the earlier one, viz. A. D.^ 67,
during the reign of the Emperor Nero. But even
conceding the former opinion, I see nothing in it to
forbid the reference of this portion of the book to the
period of the Jewish persecutions. If the object of
the writer was to console the churches then suffering

JUDAISM. 121

under the tyrannies of Domitian, he might well do
so by first depicting the overthrow of their earlier
enemy in Judea. In other words, the scope of a book
in the main prophetic does not preclude occasional
passages which are retrospective. In this way the
course of God's dealings with the foes of his church
may be exhibited as a whole, and the scenes of the
future become doubly impressive in the light shed
upon them from the past.

But for myself, I feel compelled to give a prepon-
derating weight to the internal evidence of the date
of this book,^ which as already remarked, would fix it
in the reign of Nero, and before the destruction of
Jerusalem. In chapter vi., the red horse, symbolizing
war, the black horse, famine, and the pale horse, pes-
tilence, are the counterpart of the same woes described
in Matt. 24 : 6, 7. The souls of the martyrs disclosed
under the fifth seal as lying at the foot of the altar are
the victims of the cruelties enumerated in Matt. 24 :
9-13. The opening of the sixth seal presents to us
the same phenomena, the darkening of the sun and
moon, the falling of 'the stars, etc., which are set
forth in Matt. 24 : 29, 30. The sealing of the hundred
and forty-four thousand is the gathering of the elect
in Matt. 24: 31. Chapters viii and ix are a vivid pic-
torial representation in detail of the " great tribula-
tion " that should come upon Jerusalem and Judaea
immediately preceding the overthrow of the city. We
are not to look, of course, for minute correspondences

* See a well prepared summary of the argument by Dr. J. M.
Macdonald in the Bib. Sac, Vol. 26, pp. 457-486.

122

THE PAROUSIA.

in single events. It is picture and symbol throughout,
designed to teach us in general the fearful humiliation
and destruction of the power which had persecuted
the church and set itself in array against her King.
The seventh trumpet in chapters 10 : 7 — 11 : 15, brings
us to the consummation when the mystery of God
should be finished, and the new kingdom of the Mes-
siah, which is to be supreme over all the kingdoms of
the earth is established, and which is to continue for-

ever.

The striking correspondence between our Lord's
discourse in Matthew and this portion of the Apoca-
lypse will be most apparent by arraying the two side
by side.

MATTHEW XXIV.

6 And ye shall hear of wars and
rumors of wars: see that ye be
not troubled: for all these things
must come to pass, but the end is
not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against
nation, and kingdom against king-
dom: and there shall be famines,
and pestilences, and earthquakes
in divers places.

8 All these are the beginning of
sorrows.

REVELATION.

3 And when he had opened the
second seal, I heard the second
beast say, Come and see.

4 And there went out another
horse that was red : and power was
given to him that sat thereon to
take peace from the earth, and
that they should kill one another :
and there was given unto him a
great sword.

5 And when he had opened the
third seal, I heard the third beast
say. Come and see. And I beheld,
and lo, a black horse; and he
that sat on him had a pair of bal-
ances in his hand.

G And I heard a voice in the
midst of the four beasts say, A
measure of wheat for a penny,
and three measures of barley for
a penny ; and see thou hurt not the
oil and the wine.

7 And when he had opened the
fourth seal, I heard the voice of
the fourth beast say. Come and

8 And I looked, and behold, a
pale horse : and his name that sat
on him was Death, and hell fol-
lowed with him. And power was
given unto them over the fourth
part of the earth, to kill with a
sword, and with hunger, and with
death, and with the beasts of the
earth.

JUDAISM.

123

9 Then shall they deliver yovi
up to be afflicted, and shall kill
you : and ye shall be hated of all
nations for my name's sake.

10 And then shall many be of-
fended, and shall betray one an-
other, and shall hate one another.

11 Anl maiiy false prophets
shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12 And because iniquity shall
abound, the love of many shall
wax cold.

13 But he that shall endure
unto the end, the same shall be
saved.

21 For then shall be great trib-
ulation, such as was not since the
beginning of the world to this
time, no, nor ever shall be.

22 And except those days should
be shortened, there should no flesh
be saved : but for the elect's sake
those days shall be shortened.

29 Immediately after the trib-
ulation of those days, shall the
sun be darkened, and the moon
shall not give her light, and the
stars shall fall from heaven, and
the powers of the heavens shall
be shaken:

30 And then shall appear the
sign of the Son of man in heaven :
and, then shall all the tribes of
the earth mourn, and they shall
see the Son of man coming in the
clouds of heaven with power and
great glory.

31 And he shall send his angels
with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they shall gather together his
elect from the four winds from
one end of heaven to the other.

31 "When the Son of man shall
come in his glory, and all the
holy angels with him, then shall
he sit upon the throne of his glory :

32 And before him shall be
gathered all nations : and he shall
separate them one from another,

9 And when he had opened the
fifth seal, I saw under the altar
the souls of them that were slain
for the word of God, and for the
testimony which they held :

10 And they cried with a loud
voice, saying. How long, O Lord,
holy and true, dost thou not judge
and avenge our blood on them,
that dwell on the earth ?

11 And white robes were given
unto every one of them; and it
was said unto them, that they
should rest yet for a little season,
until their fellow-servants also
and their brethren, that should
be killed as they were, should be
fulfilled.

(The sounding of the seven
trumpets, chapters viii and ix.)

12 And I beheld when he had
opened the sixth seal, and lo,
there was a great earthquake ; and
the sun became black as sack-
cloth of hair, and the moon be-
came as blood :

13 And the stars of heaven fell
unto the earth, even as a fig tree
casteth her untimely figs, when
she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14 And the heaven departed as
a scroll when it is rolled together :
and every mountain and island
were moved out of their places.

2 And I saw another angel as-
cending from the east, having the
seal of the living God: and he
cried with a loud voice to the
four angels, to whom it was given
to hurt the earth and the sea,

3 Saying, Hurt not the earth,
neither the sea, nor the trees, till
we have sealed the servants of
our God in their foreheads.

4 And I heard the number of
them which were sealed: and
there were sealed an hundred and
forty and four thousand of all the
tribes of the children of Israel.

15 And the seventh angel
sounded; and there were great
voices in heaven, saying, The
kingdoms of this world are be-
come the kingdoms of our Lord,
and of his Christ; and he shall
reign forever and ever.

124

THE PAROUSIA.

as a shepherd divideth his sheep
from his goats :

33 And he shall set the sheep
on his right hand, but the goats
on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto
them on his right hand, Come, ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world :

etc., etc.

16 And the four and twenty
elders which sat before God on
their seats, fell upon their faces,
and worshiped God.

17 Saying, We give thee thanks,
O Lord God Almighty, which art,
and wast, and art to come; be-
cause thou hast taken to thee thy
great power, and hast reigned.

18. And the nations were an-
gry, and thy wrath is come, and
the time of the dead, that they
should be judged, and that thou
shouldest give reward unto thy
servants the prophets, and to the
saints, and to them that fear thy
name, small and great; and
shouldest destroy them, which de-
stroy the earth.

Upon this subject the language of Dean Alford is
very explicit, and all the more convincing from the
fact that he holds to the later date of the composi-
tion of the Apocalypse.

" The close connection between our Lord's prophetic
discourse on the Mount of Olives and the line of
Apocalyptic prophecy cannot fail to have struck every
student of Scripture. If it be suggested that such
connection may be merely apparent, and we subject it
to the test of more accurate examination, our first im-
pression will, I think, become continually stronger that
the two being revelations from the same Lord con-
cerning things to come, and those things being, as it
seems to me, bound by tlie four-fold ' Come ' (^ipxou)
which introduces the seals to the same reference to
Christ's coming, must, corresponding as they do in or-
der and significance, answer to one another in detail,
and thus the discourse in Matt. 24 becomes, as Mr.
Isaac Williams has truly named it, 'the anchor of
apocalyptic interpretation^'' and I may add the touch-
stone of apocalyptic systems." Com. vol. iv., p. 249.

PAGANISM. 125

SECTION n.
PAGANISM.

The second great class of persecutions waged
against the Kingdom of Christ was that of Paganism.
The delineation of it is believed to have been made
in Rev., chapters xii — xx.

The principal characters engaged in this tragedy
are portrayed with wonderful power. First there ap-
pears a great bloody-hued, seven-headed Dragon,
horned and crowned, whose sinuous tail sweeps over
a third part of the heavens, dislodging the stars from
their spheres. That there may be no doubt as to who is
intended by it we are told that it represents " that old
serpent called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth
the whole world." He is the prime instigator of the
persecution. Next there arises out of the sea a hid-
eous Beast, of monstrous form, armed with whatever
is terrible of horns and fangs and claws, to whom the
Dragon, his patron, gives " power and a throne and
great authority." He is the symbol of a king clothed
with irresistible might, and yielding himself to be the
agent and instrument of Satan in the bloody work
he is about to initiate. An enigmatical designation,
calculated to conceal its meaning from the enemies of
the Christians, yet of easy solution by " him that hath
understanding " of the cabbalistic use of the Hebrew
numerals shows him to be the reigning emperor,
NERO-CjESAR.^ a second monster, less formid-

* See an account of the Gematria or " Science of figures," as
used by the Jewish Rabbis, in Geikie's Life of Christ, vol. 1,

126 THE PAROUSIA.

able in aspect than the other, but endowed with in-
fernal cunning and wonder-working skill, springs out
of the earth and joins the Dragon and the Beast in
their conspiracy against the saints of God. He is evi-
dently the symbol of the Pagan religion, with its
splendid array of priests and augurs and magical rites
with which the established cultus of the empire holds
captive the minds of men.

Well may we shudder at such a trio of foes arrayed
against the church, and to read that " it was given un-
to him (the Beast) to make war with the saints and
to overcome them ; and power was given him over all
kindreds and tongues and nations. And all that dwell
upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are
not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain, from
the foundation of the world."

That the Neronic persecution corresponded in
atrocity to the fearful array here described needs no
proof to any who understand the history of those
times. Our present purpose does not require us to

pp. 256, 570. "In the Book of Revelation the name of the Beast
is veiled from common eyes by the mystical number 666, but
the reason for its being so becomes very apparent when we find
that it is a cypher for the letters of the name of Nero." Thus

N R O N K S R

50 + 200 + 6 -f- 50 + 100 -f 60 + 200 = 666.
"Neron Kesar (Nero the Emperor), was apparently the name
by which the Christians of Asia spoke of the monster. Thug
the coins of Asia bore the legend, NERON KAISAR, the form
of the mystic number. There are inscriptions at Palmyra in
which Nero's name and dignity are written exactly as in the
cypher in the Apocalypse. — De Vogue's Syrie Centrale, etc.,
1868, pp. 17, 26."

THE BINDING OF SATAN. 127

dwell upon it at length. For a summary view the
reader is referred to what we have said respecting the
" Man of Sin," (ante, p. 69) and to the note upon
that passage in the Appendix.

The next six chapters of the Apocalypse describe
the defeat of these enemies, and the punishment of
the persecutors. In chapter xvii is given a vision of
Rome itself, under the figure of a scarlet-robed harlot
riding upon a scarlet colored beast covered with blas-
phemous titles, and drunken with the blood of the
martyred saints. A prophetic dirge laments her
hastening downfall, while a rejoicing chorus in heaven
exults over the retribution, and the approaching mar-
riage of the Lamb. Then appears the conquering
Messiah, the Word of God, followed by the armies of
heaven, while the Beast and his allies prepare their
final assault upon him. These are overcome and cap-
tured, the beasts are cast into hell, and all their hosts
slain. Then the Dragon himself, the arch instigator
of the whole, is seized and bound in the abyss, and a
thousand years of rest for the church, and triumph of
the martyrs ensue.

SECTION m.
THE BINDr^fG OF SATAN.

What, then, are we to understand by the binding of
Satan for a thousand years ?

It has been commonly assumed that it means that
abolition of all moral evil and suffering, which, in the
last age of the world, is to follow the final triumph of
Christianity. As the introduction of sin and its woes

128 THE PAROUSIA.

is ascribed to him as the original tempter, so, not un-
naturally, his confinement in chains is taken to sig-
nify its extinction, and the restoration of paradise to
the world. Hence the word millennium^ derived from
the thousand years here spoken of, has come to be
synonymous with that blessed age, the era of univer-
sal holiness and happiness. But a more careful ex-
amination of the passage in its connection shows that
this is an error.

1. In the first place, it is not Satan in his general
character, so to speak, as the prince of all evil, that is
the subject of the prophetic narrative ; it is solely in
his capacity as a persecutor. For this alone is he in-
troduced upon the scene ; it is to symbolize the qual-
ities of a persecutor that the hideous characteristics of
his person are portrayed, and it is this work which
throughout the sketch he is represented as doing by
means of his agents, the Beast and the False Prophet.
Consistency, therefore, requires that the confinement
he now suffers should be taken in the same special
and restricted sense.*

2. There is nowhere the slightest intimation in the
scriptures that the cessation of Pagan persecution was

^ "Satan thus exerting himself by the power of the heathen
Koman empire, is called the great red dragon in Scripture, hav-
ing seven heads and ten horns, fighting against the woman
clothed with the sun, as in the 12th of Kevelation. And the ter-
rible conflict there was between the church of Christ and the
powers of the heathen empire before Constantine's time is there,
in verse 7, represented by the war betwen Michael and his
angels, and the Dragon and his angels." — Edwards' Hist, of Re-
demption, Period III, part 2.

THE BIN'DING OF SATAN. 129

to result in the immediate introduction of the latter-
day glory. There is, or at least may be, a long
period between the day when Christianity became too
strong to be successfully assailed from without, and the
day of its universal triumph, — a period, on the whole,
of prosperity, of growth, of great activity in spreading
the gospel among men, but not one at all answering
to the idea of perfection and rest pertaining to her
consummation in glory. That glory is described in
chapters xxi and xxii — the New Jerusalem established
upon the new earth, in which the Lord God and the
Lamb are to reign forever.

3. The state of the world during the thousand years
of the binding of Satan is not that predicated of her
latter-day glory. Even at the close of that period
there remain nations in the distant parts of the earth
who have never been brought into subjection to Christ.
Nor are these merely few and insignificant, as if not
worthy to be taken into the account ; they are a vast
multitude, " whose number is as the sand of the sea."
But if any one thing is emphatic in the description of
the latter-day glory, it is that of its absolute univer-
sality. " He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and
from the river unto the ends of the earth." " All
kings shall fall down before him ; all nations shall
serve him " (Ps. 72 : 8, 11). " From the rising of
the sun even unto the going down of the same, my
name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every
place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a
pure offering, for my name shall be great among the
heathen, saith the Lord of hosts " (Mai. 1 : 11). It is
7

130 THE PABOUSIA.

absolutely certain that such a state of things as that
cannot co-exist with the still unconverted and multi-
tudinous nations that survive the period here desig-
nated.

4. The thousand years is a limited period ; that of the
latter-day glory is to be without end. Whether those
thousand years are, as we believe, to be understood
literally, or, putting a day for a year, as denoting
three hundred and sixty thousand, or, more generally
still, a long period simply, they are in either case in-
consistent with the duration which is predicated of
the final glory. The proofs of that perpetuity will be
adduced hereafter. By no principle of interpretation
can we make the two identical in their continuance.

I cannot accept then the common view that the
millennium of the Apocalypse is the same thing as the
ultimate day of glory and rest to the church. In en-
deavoring to show affirmatively what it does signify,
let me advert once more to the marks of unity which
connect this passage with what had gone before.

Let it be observed that all the personages men-
tioned here are the same that had figured in the pre-
ceding chapters. The leading character is still the
great Dragon, the deceiver of the nations, who by his
arts persuaded them to worship the Beast and to unite
in warfare against the church. The martyrs again
appear, who had been beheaded for the witness of
Jesus, and who had not worshiped the Beast nor his
image, neither had received his mark upon their fore-
heads.

On the other hand, while the topic and the persons re-

THE BINDING OF SATAN. 131

main the same, there is an incompleteness of thought
in the antecedent narrative which needs supplementing
here. The inspired seer had described the defeat and
doom of the Beast and the False Prophet, with all
their host. But what, the reader instinctively asks, is
to become of him who instigated all that mischief, the
greater sinner behind all whose mere tools they were ?
Is he to escape wdth impunity ? It will be but slight
consolation to the churches, then bleeding and crushed
in his cruel toils, to know that Nero shall be over-
thrown, if their greater enemy be still at liberty to fo-
ment new persecutions and harass them not only
without mercy but without end.

And this I take to be the significance of the repre-
sentation which follows. It is the comforting voice of
Him for whom they have suffered, responding to their
cry and saying, " No, he shall not go free ! Not only
in the grand consummation is he to be utterly de-
stroyed, but even now the end of his bloody career
draweth nigh. He shall be arrested, shorn of his
power, bound in chains, and shut up in the bottomless
pit, the St. Helena of the universe, for one thousand
years, while the martyred victims of his malice shall
arise from their dishonor, and ascend to thrones of
special dignity and glory, as favored participants in
the triumph of their King."

The binding of Satan, then, I cannot doubt, denotes
the cessation of Pagan persecution against the church.
And if that view be correct, it is not difficult to as-
sign an approximate date to which it is to be referred.

In the year A. D. 324, Constantine the Great, by

132 THE PABOUSIA.

the defeat of Licinius, the emperor of the East, became
sole monarch of the Roman Empire. He had many
years before this embraced Christianity, — according
to Eusebius, in consequence of the remarkable vision
he had seen of the radiant cross in the sky accompan-
ied by the legend, " By this conquer." As early as
A. D. 315, he had persuaded Licinius to joi nhim in a
general edict proclaiming toleration to Christianity,
an edict, however, which was little regarded by the
eastern king, who subsequently relapsed into heathen-
ism and came into open conflict with Constantine,^ in
which he was defeated and soon after put to death.
Constantine, now attaining the sole imperial dignity,
issued a new proclamation reaffirming the edict of tol-
eration, and exhorting all his subjects to " imitate
without delay the example of their sovereign and to
embrace the divine truth of Christianity." From that
time this edict was " received as a general and funda-
mental law of the Roman world. ''^ ^

This law granted a free and absolute power to all
Christians and others to follow that religion which
they preferred; enacted that the churches and lands
which had been confiscated by Diocletian should be

^■"Tlie Christians formed the nucleus of Constantine's party
when the relation between him and Licinius became loose.
Hence for this very reason, Licinius sought to obtain a more
decided party by renewed attention to the religion of the pagans
and by persecution of the Christians. Accordingly, the struggle
that arose between Licinius and Constantine, A. D. 323 was at
the same time a struggle between Christianity and heathenism .
Licinius was defeated and Constantine openly professed the
Jhristian faith, though he still put off baptism." Guericke.

^ Gibbon Decline and Fall, chap. XX.

THE BINDING OF SATAN. 133

" restored without dispute, without delay, and without
expense ; " and established numerous regulations to
guard the tranquillity of his Christian subjects, and
secure enlarged and equal rights of conscience to all.
Such a law, enforced by the authority and example of
an illustrious conquerer and sovereign, changed the
religious aspect of the empire. Paganism, though not
absolutely forbidden, fell into disfavor ; its power to
injure was wrested from it, its imposing worship faded ;
in many cases its temples were despoiled and its wealth
bestowed upon the church ; and to crown all, a new
city was founded on the beautiful Bosphorus which
thenceforth was the Christian capital of the empire
and of the world.

This remarkable event was regarded by the
Christians of that time, and by Constantine himself,
as the fulfillment of the very prophecy before us.
Accordingly not only was the well-known Idbarum^
composed of the first two letters in the name of our
Lord, placed upon the standards of the army, and
impressed upon the imperial coins, but a public mon-
ument was set up, bearing a representation of the
emperor, with the cross over his head, and under his
feet Satan in the form of a serpent falling headlong
into the abyss. "For," says Eusebius, "the sacred
oracles in the books of God's prophets have de-
scribed him as a dragon and a crooked serpent ; and
for this reason the emperor thus publicly displayed a
painted resemblance (cera igne resoluta) of the dragon
beneath his own and his children's feet, stricken
through with a dart and cast headlong into the depths

134 THE PAROUSIA.

of the sea. In this manner he intended to represent
that concealed adversary of the human race, and to
indicate that he was consigned to the gulf of perdi-
tion by virtue of the trophy of salvation placed above
his head."'^

Perhaps no event in the annals of history was ever
more memorable than this. " This revolution," says
Pres. Edwards, the elder, "was the greatest revolu-
tion and change in the face of things that ever came
to pass in the world since the flood. Satan, the
prince of darkness, that king and god of the heathen
world, was cast out. The roaring lion was conquered
by the Lamb of God in the strongest dominion that
ever he had, even the Roman Empire."^ " This rising
significance of the cross," says Schaff, " was a faithful
symbol of the extraordinary change in the empire.
The Grseco-Roman heathenism surrendered after a
three hundred years' struggle to Christianity, and died
of incurable consumption. The ruler of the civilized
world laid his crown at the feet of the crucified Jesus
of Nazareth. The successor of Nero, Domitian, and
Diocletian, who had done their best to exterminate
the pestilential sect, appeared a few years after the
last and most bloody persecution, in the imperial pur-
ple at the council at Nice, as protector of this very
sect, and took his golden throne at the nod of bishops,
many of whom still bore the scars of persecution.
The despised religion which for three centuries, like its
Founder in the days of his humiliation, had not where

»De Yita Const. Lib. 1, cap. 40.

''Work of Redemption. Period III, part 2.

THE BINDING OF SATAN. 135

to lay his head, was raised to sovereign authority in
the state ; entered into the prerogatives of the pagan
priesthood ; grew rich and powerful ; built countless
churches and altars out of the stones of idol temples
to the honor of Christ and his martyrs ; employed the
wisdom of Greece and Rome to vindicate the foolish-
ness of the cross ; exerted a molding influence upon
civil legislation ; ruled the life of the people, and be-
gan to control the general course of civilization."*

Such seems to have been the event disclosed to the
apostle in Patmos under the symbol of the binding of
Satan. It was the one single promise, little estimated
by us who live in these late days of prosperous ease,
but which to the martyrs and confessors, companions
of John in " tribulation and in the kingdom and pa-
tience of Jesus Christ," was pregnant with most joy-

^Bib. Sac. vol. XX. p. 788.

" It is not necessary to do more than enumerate the acts of
Constantine's ecclesiastical legislation in order to see the vast-
ness of the revolution of which he was the leader. In the year
after his conversion was issued the edict of toleration. Then
followed in rapid succession, the decree for the observance of
Sunday in the towns of the Empire, the use of prayers for the
army, the abolition of the punishment of crucifixion, the en-
couragement of the emancipation of slaves, the discouragement
of infanticide, the prohibition of licentious and cruel rites, the
prohibition of gladiatorial games. Every one of these steps
was a gain to the Roman empire and to mankind, such as not
even the Antonines had ventured to attempt, and of those bene-
fits none has been altogether lost. Undoubtedly, if Constantine
is to be judged by the place which he occupies amongst the
benefactors of mankind, he would rank not amongst the sec-
ondary characters of history, but amongst the very first."
Stanley's Eastern Church, p. 293.

136 THE PAROUSIA.

ful import, that pagan persecution should soon be
ended. The bloody dragon who was preying upon
them should be cast down from his throne. The very
cross itself, the detested symbol of his enmity, should
become the trophy of victory over him. It may be
objected that this comes far short of our ideas as to
what this long looked for thousand years was to be.
True, pagan persecution ceased, and yet the centuries
which followed were anything but an era of prosperity
to the church. Ignorance, superstition, and barbarism
settled like a pall upon the nations, marking these as
the Dark Ages of the world. The papacy usurped
secular power, and took up in its turn the bloody
weapons of persecution which had fallen from heathen
hands. The Bible became a sealed book even within
the church, and true religion fled for safety to moun-
tain fastnesses and inaccessible valleys. Was this,
I shall be asked, with contemptuous surprise, the
millennium^ And my answer must still be in the
affirmative,^ reiterating my former remark that the

»See Bush on the Millennium, in which nearly the same view
is advocated that have here presented.

" We are disposed to think that the period in question is
not meant to be literally and chronologically one thousand
years. The number is put indefinitely ; it points to a time when
Christianity had triumphed over paganism. Heathenism had
been destroyed in the Roman empire. This leads to the an-
cient view, viz. : that the period is past, not future. It will be
observed that the Beast and the False Prophet are both de-
stroyed. Chapter xx. Now the Beast cannot mean the papacy,
as has been often assumed. It refers to the heathen power
which was opposed to Christ and his religion. Hence the mil-
lennium began after the abolition of paganism in the Eoman
empire." Davidson, Introd. Yol, 8, p. 630.

GOG AND MAGOG. 137

surprise expressed proceeds from a wholly wrong
assumption of the nature of the period in question,
confounding it with that era of universal rest and
glory which is to follow sooner or later after the last
great persecution, when not only shall Satan be bound
in chains, but when he, and death, and Hades, with
all enemies of the now triumphant kingdom of
Christ, shall be cast into the lake of fire.
What then was to be that last persecution ?

SECTION IV.
GOG AND MAGOG.

The thousand years have expired, and Satan is loose
again. In the distant regions of the earth, — the land
of Gog and Magog, — are mighty nations, with a popu-
lation innumerable " as the sand of the sea." These he
stirs up against the saints. They leave their barbarous
homes, invade the Christian territory, surround its
capital and the beloved city, Jerusalem, — but are
destroyed by the lightnings of heaven. What is this
but a graphic description of the rise, the conquests,
and the ultimate overthrow of the Ottoman Empire,
the great monarchy in which Mohammedanism, the
rival religion to Christianity, enthroned itself and
undertook the conquest of the world?

Magog was the second son of Japheth (Gen. 10 : 2),
and the name seems to have been borne also by the peo-
ple descended from him. He and his brothers are
generally regarded as having settled in the northern
regions of Asia beyond the Euxine and Caspian seas,
and become the progenitors of the various tribes

138 THE PAROUSIA.

bearing the general designation of Scythians. " Jewish
tradition, as preserved by Josephus and Jerome, extend-
ed the name (Magog) to all the nomad tribes beyond
the Caucasus and the Palus Mseotis, and from the
Caspian sea to India, thus including the Tartar and
Mongolian tribes, as well as those more properly
belonging to the Scythians."^ In the prophecies of
Ezekiel are recorded a series of denunciations against
this people in which Gog appears as their prince or
ruler, and Magog as the designation of their country.
Ezek. 38 : 30.

This vast region, the inexhaustible hive of the north-
ern barbarians who from time immemorial had been
the terror of the civilized world, was the original source
of the Turks, who began to figure in history in the
sixth century. As early as A..D. 545, a Turkish
invasion overspread the continent from the Euxine
sea to China, but their power lasted only about two
centuries. From time to time they appeared again
amid the commotions of the East, and in 1206 they
composed a part of the empire of the Great Mogul,
Zingis Khan, who reduced to his sway nearly all Asia
and a large portion of Europe. In the year A. D. 1299
Athman or Othman, one of their chieftains, invaded
and plundered the Christian province of Nicomeda, in
Asia Minor, and twenty-seven years later obtained
possession of its capital, the beautiful city of Prusa,
now Broosa. The lives and property of the Christians
were ransomed on the payment of thirty thousand
crowns in gold, and the city converted into a Moham-

»W. L. Alexander, in Kitto Bib. Cyc.

GOG AND MAGOG, 139

medan capital. " From the conquest of Prusa," says
Gibbon, " we may date the true era of the Ottoman
Ijmpire.'^^ This was in the year 1326, one thousand
and two years from the promulgation of the imperial
edict of Constantine.

It is difficult at this day for any who are not thorough-
ly familiar with the history of the East to understand
what the Ottoman Empire was in its relations to
Christianity. Turkey is now, emphatically, " the sick
man," holding his very throne by the sufferance of
Christian nations. But three centuries ago it was
something very different from this. The following
description taken from the learned history of Richard
KnoUes, published in 1603, at the time when that
empire was in the hight of its prosperity, will show
how it was regarded at that time.

" There stept vp among the Turkes in Bithynia one
Osman or Othoman, of the Ozugian tribe or familie,
a man of great spirit and valor, who b}' little and little
growing vp amongst the rest of his countrymen and
other the effeminate Christians on that side of Asia,
at last, like another Romulus, tooke vpon him the
name of a Sultan or King, and is right worthily
accounted the first founder of the mightie empire of
the Turkes, which, continued by many descents direct
ly in the line of himself even vnto Achmet who now
reigneth, is from a small beginning become the greatest
terrour of the worlde, and holding in subjection many
greate and mightie kingdoms in Asia, Europe, and
Africke, is grown to that height of pride as that it

^ Decline and Fall, cliap. Ixiv.

140 THE PABOUSIA.

threatneth destruction vnto the rest of the kingdoms
of the earth, laboring with nothing more than the
weight of itselfe. In the greatnesse whereof is
swallowed vp both the name and empire of the Sara-
sins, the glorious empire of the Greeks, the renowned
kingdoms of Macedonia, Peloponessus, Epirus, Bulga-
ria, Servia, Bosnia, Armenia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt,
Judea, Tunes, Algeirs, Media, Mesopotamia, with a
great part of Hungarie, as also of the Persian King-
dom, and all those churches and places so much spoken
of in holy Scripture (the Romans onely excepted), and
in brief, so much of Christendom as farre exceedeth
that which is thereof at this day left. So that at this
present, if you consider the beginning, progress, and
perpetual felicitie of this the Othoman Empire, there
is in this world nothing more admirable or strange ; if
the greatnesse and lustre thereof, nothing more magnifi-
cent or glorious ; if the power and strength thereof,
nothing more dreadful and dangerous ; which, wonder-
ing at nothing but the beauty of itself, and drunk with
the pleasant wine of perpetual felicitie, holdeth all
the rest of the world in scorne, thundering out noth-
ing but still bloud and warre, with a full perswasion
in time to rule over all, prefining vnto itself no other
limits than the vttermost bounds of the earth, from the
rising of the sun unto the going down of the same." ^

The same writer, at the close of his history of
Othman, speaks of him as the founder of the empire
thus:

" Of a poore lordship he left a great kingdom, hav-

^■Geiierall Historie of the Turks. Preface.

GOG ANB MAGOG. 141

ing subdved a great part of the lesser Asia, and is
worthily accounted the first founder of the Turks'
great kingdom and empire. Of him the Turkish
kings and emperors ever since have been called the
Othman kings and emperours, as lineally of him de-
scended, and the Turks themselves Osmanidae^ as the
people or subjects of Othman or Osman, for so he
is of the Turks commonly called."^

That the Turkish empire has ever been hostile to
Christianity is one of the most familiar facts of his-
tory. In 1460, under Mahomet II, Constantinople
was captured with terrible slaughter, its people mur-
dered or sold into captivity, its churches burned or
converted into mosks, and the city of the first Chris-
tian emperor made the capital of Islam. In 1517 the
Holy Land was overrun, and Jerusalem itself, " the
beloved city," taken. For more than three centuries
it has maintained its sway over the lands where the
Saviour and his apostles taught and died, and has ex-
ercised a pitiless despotism over all their followers.
The market places of her cities have been public marts,
where Christians of both sexes and of all ages have
been sold into perpetual slavery. Confiscation, op-
pressive taxation, and open robbery, have despoiled
them of their goods, and the murder of an unbelieving
dog has been esteemed as a service to Allah and his
Prophet. It is only within the present generation,
under the growing influence of the western kingdoms,
that its hostility has at all abated, and a toleration

"^ Id. p. 177.

142 THE PAROUSIA.

of the Christian faith has been reluctantly conceded.
And now as we write, it is professedly as an oppres-
sor and persecutor of Christians that it has apparently
been brought to the last extremity by Russia. There
are undoubtedly elements of worldly ambition lying
underneath the contest, but even this ambition points
in the same direction, to recover from the grasp of the
invader that city which was founded by the first
Christian emperor, and for more than a thousand
years was the capital, or one of the capitals, of the
Christian world.^

Upon the destruction of this third great persecuting
power, it is predicted that " the devil that deceived "
these nations shall be cast into a lake of fire and brim-
stone, where the Beast and the False Prophet are " —
his former allies in enmity to Christ, — " and shall be
tormented day and night forever." That is, bearing

^ I take the liberty of saying here, that I advance the foregoing
theory as to the power intended under the mystic names of Gog
and Magog, with very great diffidence, ratlier because I can not
find any considerable weight of authority for it among the com-
mentators than because of any lack of self-evidencing indicia
in the theory itself . The name "Magog," so certainly belonging
to the region whence the Ottoman Turks originated ; the time of
their introduction upon the scene, almost an exact 1000 years
from Constantine's edict suppressing Roman persecution; their
vast numbers; the nature of their conquests, viz. the "breadth
of the land," i. e. the Christian territory; "the camp of the
saints," i. e. the fortified Christian capitol; and "the beloved
city," Jerusalem — all these constitute a series of circumstantial
coincidences with the known facts too remarkable to be acci-
dental. What other theory can be named embodying so many,
and those not fanciful or conjectural, but in strict accordance
with the plain testimony of history ?

THE EESURBECTION OF THE MARTYRS. 143

in mind still the part that he has been acting hitherto,
persecution by hostile nations against Christianity
shall forever cease. That we are drawing near to
that period seems very probable. The persecuting
empire of Mohammed is already in its dotage, and
any serious attempts to renew its ancient assaults on
Christianity would infallibly lead to its prompt ex-
tinction as by " a fire from God out of heaven." The
Christian nations have become the mightiest in the
world. No anti-christian power, Pagan, Buddhistic, or
Mohammedan could withstand their united forces for
a day. On the other hand Christianity has become
itself the aggressor, and with weapons not carnal, the
Bible and the appliances of Christian civilization, is
going forth on its career of conquest which, according
to all present appearances, must in a few centuries, not
to say a few years, embrace the whole family of man.

SECTION V.
THE RESTJERECTION OF THE MAKTYBS.

During the thousand years of the binding of Satan,
there should take place what is described by the Seer
as follows :

" And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and
judgment was given unto them ; and I saw the souls of
them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and
for the word of God, and which had not worshiped
the beast, neither his image, neither had received his
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; and
they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

144 THE PAROUSIA,

But the rest of the dead lived not again until the
thousand years were finished. This is the first resur-
rection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the
first resurrection : on such the second death hath no
power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ
and shall reign with him a thousand years."

The first statement in this passage is of the most
general character. It is as if the apostle had at first
but a glimpse of a scene which he did not understand.
He saw thrones, persons sitting upon them, and judicial
or royal (for ruling and judging are synonymous)
dignity given to them. Then, as if a clearer view was
afforded him, or an explanation added, he expands that
outline statement into the fuller one succeeding. This
being the case, we may understand the connective "and"
in the sense of " even " — " to wit." The same well
known usage of the Greek conjunction appears again
near the close of the verse.

The persons here referred to are the martyrs of the
preceding period of persecution, viz., those who had
been " beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the
word of God." The remaining language probably
includes also the others who had been equally faithful
in refusing obedience to the Beast at the peril of their
lives, though they were not actually put to death.
These — the martyrs and confessors — and no others are
the subject of the passage. The assumption which is
often made that all the pious dead are included, is
entirely without warrant from the passage itself, and
tends to involve the whole in inextricable confusion.

These " lived and reigned with Christ a thousand

TBE BESUBBECTION OF THE MABTYES. 145

years." Various opinions have been advanced as to
the nature of this resurrection. 1. Some understand
it literally of the resurrection of the body ; the martyrs,
as the reward of their constancy, being raised to glory
a thousand years before the general resurrection.
Millenarians generally add to this the idea that this
first resurrection extends to all the righteous dead, and
that the place of their reigning is to be here on earth.
But I see no ground for either of these beliefs, either
in the language before us or in the eschatological
teachings of the Scriptures in general. 2. Whitby
and other post millenarians regard this not as a resur-
rection of i\iQ persons of the martyrs, but of their prin-
ciples and spirit. " It may," says Archbishop Whately,
" signify not the literal raising of dead men, but the
raising up of an increased Christian zeal and holiness :
the revival in the Christian church, or in some consider-
able portion of it, of the spirit and energy of the noble
martyrs of old (even as John the Baptist came in the
spirit and power of Elias) ; so that Christian principles
shall be displayed in action throughout the world in
an infinitely greater degree than ever before." * This
theory seems to me more inadmissable than the former.
The bare reading of the passage suggests its inadequacy,
and almosts compels the inference that it was resorted
to, not because it was the natural and obvious import
of the text, but because it was the most plausible way
out of the difficulties caused by the many erroneous
assumptions made as to the general scope and design
of the book. Most undeniably, the reward vouchsafed

a Essays on the Future State.

146 THE PAROUSIA.

to those martyrs and confessors was something personal
to them, which made them " blessed and holy " in an
eminent degree.

That reward lies upon the face of the passage, and
so plainly that I marvel it could ever be mistaken.
Judicial dignity was given to them ; they reigned with
Christ.

They livedo that is, they reigned. We take the two
words here as synonymous, the and being the kai epexi-
getical or explanatory, so well-known to commentators.*
It is a use of the word often occurring in the Scrip-
tures. Robinson instances Matt. 21 : 5 — " an ass,
that is, a colt." 1 Cor. 15 : 24 ; James 1 : 27 ; 3 : 9,
" God, that is, the Father." Matt. 13; 41. " Things
that offend, that is, them which do iniquity." Rom.
1: 5. "Grace, that is, the apostleship," etc.

The word live often has the signification to be
blessed, i. e. to live emphatically, to have life in an in-
tensified degree. Rom. 10 : 5 ; Gal. 3 : 12. " He that
doeth these things shall live in them." 1 Thess. 3 : 8.
" Now we live if ye stand fast." Luke 10 : 28. " This
do, and thou shalt live.'' Heb. 12 : 9. " Shall we
not be in subjection to the Father of spirits and
livef The idea, then is, that these faithful witnesses
for Christ, whom their enemies supposed they had ut-
terly destroyed, still lived, i. e. they were exalted to
a high state of felicity. Then, as if to be more ex-
plicit, it is added, " They reigned with Christ." In
other words, their living consisted in the honor of par-

«^ Winer's N. T. Grammar, p. 458.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE MARTYRS. 147

ticipating in the administration of the kingdom with
Christ the king.

This is something more than "entering the king-
dom," "seeing the kingdom," "inheriting the king-
dom," etc., which is promised to all believers. Every
loyal subject of a monarch may share in the happiness
flowing from his reign, its peace, prosperity, security,
and glory. But not all are elevated to princely rank
in it, and made participants in the government itself.
This special honor is reserved in Christ's kingdom for
the martyrs and confessors who had been faithful unto
death. In our loose way of quoting the Scriptures,
we have become habituated to cite these extraordinary
promises as if pertaining to all Christ's people. We
doubt, however, if an instance can be found in which
this dignity of kingship in heaven is not predicated
solely of those who, like their Master, reach it by the
way of suffering and death for his sake. " Inter feras^
per erucem, ad coronam.^^ •

This peculiar reward of the martyrs is often men-
tioned elsewhere. When the two sons of Zebedee
petitioned for princely thrones on either hand of
Christ in his kingdom, his reply was, " Ye know not
what ye ask ? Are ye able to drink of my cup and
share in my baptism ?* You are aspiring to the re-
served honors of those who suffer as I am to suffer ;
who for my sake go to the cross and the bloody tomb.
To ask for the former is to ask for the latter also."
Said Peter at another time, " We have forsaken all
and followed thee ; what shall we have therefore ? "

a Matt. 20:22.

148 THE PAROUSIA.

Jesus' reply was " Ye which have followed me," — and
the connection shows that he meant it in the same
sense of self-denial and suffering, — "in the regenera-
tion, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of
his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judg-
ing the twelve tribes of Israel." Matt. 19: 27-29.
In Rom. 8: 16, 17, the two grades of heavenly bless-
edness for the two classes of the saints are distinctly
specified. " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit that we (all Christians) are the children of God.
And if children heirs, heirs of God — and joint heirs
with Christ if so be that we suffer with him, that we
(Christ and his martyrs) may be also glorified togeth-
gr." So Peter, "Beloved, think it not strange con-
cerning the fiery trial which is to try you — but
rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffer-
ings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be
glad also with exceeding joy." (1 Pet. 1 ; 12, 13.)
Accordingly, it passed into a saying Qoyo^') among
the early Christians, which Paul emphatically declared
to be a true one, " If we be dead with him we shall
also live with him ; if we suffer we shall also reign
with him." 2 Tim. 2: 12. In Revelation 1 : 5, 6, John
ascribes praise to Jesus Christ " who is the faithful
witness (Gr. Martyr) the First begotten of the dead,
— who loved us — and hath made us kings and priests
unto God and his Father." He is addressing his
" companions in tribulation and in the kingdom and
patience of Jesus Christ." And to those among the
churches who were faithful in that time of persecu-
tion, Christ sent the special promises, " He that over-

THE RESURRECTION OF THE MARTYRS. 149

Cometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him
will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule
them with a rod of iron ; as the vessels of a potter
shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of
my Father," — i. e. he shall share in my royal authori-
ty, as predicted in the second Psalm. " To him that
overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne,
even as I also overcame and am set down with my
Father in his throne." Rev. 2 : 26, 27 ; 3 : 21.

This reigning with Christ shall continue a "thous-
and years," evidently the same thousand as that of
Satan's confinement.^ Not that it shall then termi-
nate, but that period is mentioned in order that the
two may stand in contrast with' each other. As dur-
ing the mart3^r age Satan was reigning in the Beast
and False Prophet, and the saints were humiliated and
oppressed, so now for a thousand years he shall be
humiliated and they shall reign. This reigning was
the "judgment that was given to them," and the ful-
fillment of the words of Paul in 1 Cor. 6 : 3, "Know
ye not that we shall judge angels ? " It is undoubt-
edly a figure taken from the triumphal honors decreed
to illustrious conquerors and their generals, in which
their vanquished foes were shown in dungeons or
dragged in chains behind their victors.

a "The identity of this period of a thousand years with that of
vs. 2, 3, which was unaccountably denied by Bengel, if it might
otherwise be a matter of doubt and were not determinately
fixed by the whole context, at all events is established by verse
7, where the thousand years cannot be conceived different from
those in verse 3, and as little from those in the immediately
preceding verses in vs. 4-6." Hengstenberg, vol. II, p. 337, note.

150 THE PAR0U8IA.

" This is the first resurrection." Not of the body,
for there is not a word said of this, and historically,
we know that nothing of the sort took place at any
time within the period referred to. The persons whom
John saw were the souls of the martyrs, and it was
these that lived and reigned. The word anastasis
does not, of itself, imply a corporeal resurrection ; its
literal meaning, as will be shown hereafter, is the sec-
ond or future life. The place where they lived and
reigned was " with Christ " — i. g., in heaven, not on
earth. The meaning is. This is the peculiarly glorious
and blessed after-life^ succeeding the murderous blow
of the Roman executioner, which shall be enjoyed by
those who remained faithful till death.

It is called the first resurrection, not in point of
time^ but of rank and honor. This use of the Greek
word is very common. It is translated chief in Matt.
20 : 27 ; Mark 6 : 21 ; 10 : 44 ; Luke 19 : 47 ; Acts
13 : 50 ; 16 : 12 ; 25 : 2 ; 28 : 7, 17 ; 1 Tim. 1 : 15 ;
etc. In Luke 15 : 22, it is the best.

Hence in the original this resurrection is denoted
by a phraseology differing from that which is applied
to the resurrection of mankind in general. It is lost
sight of in our English version, but it is a peculiarity
of too much importance to be rightfully disregarded.
The latter is usually styled simply the resurrection of
the dead ; that of Christ, and his martyrs the resur-
rection/row OT from out of the dead. So in the Vul-
gate, the resurrectio a or ex mortuls is distinguished
from the resurrectio mortuorum. See Rom. 8 : 11 ;
10: 7; Eph. 1: 20; Heb. 13 : 20; 1 Pet. 1 : 3,21.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE MARTYRS. 151

It implies that out of the whole number of the depart-
ed there shall be those who attain a peculiar honor,
one which they do not share in common with the rest.

Being thus the most exalted state of future reward,
it became the object of intensest desire on the part of
persecuted saints. It was this, Paul says, which ani-
mated the martyrs of the former dispensation. They
were " tortured, not accepting deliverance that they
might obtain a better resurrection." Heb. 11 : 35.
Even for himself he declared that he made it the ob-
ject of his most strenuous eifort, " to know Christ and
.the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his
sufferings^ being made conformable to his death, if by
any means he might attain unto the resurrection of
the dead " (Gr. "the resurrection which is from
among the dead)." " Not," he adds, " as though I
had already attained, either were already perfect," —
he had not yet won the martyr's crown by his death, —
*' but I follow after if that I may apprehend — pressing
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3 : 10-14.

It was the same inspiring hope that actuated the
Christians of the succeeding centuries, and led them
to seek the bloody crown of martyrdom, the pledge of
the crown of victory above. " I beseech you," wrote
Irenseus to his friends, "that you show not an un-
seasonable good will towards me. Suffer me to be
food for the wild beasts, by whom I shall attain unto
God. For I am the wheat of God, and I shall be
ground- by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be

152 THE PAROUSIA.

found the pure bread of Christ."^ Such as attained
this coveted honor were distinguished in painting by the
aureole surrounding their heads, in token of the celes-
tial crown which they had won. " It was conceived,"
says Mosheim,'' " that they were taken directly up into
heaven and admitted to a share in the divine counsels
and administration ; that they sat as judges with God,
enjoying the highest marks of his favor, and possess-
ing influence sufficient to obtain from him whatever
they might make the object of their prayers." To the
same effect testifies the sneering Gibbon."^ " It is not
easy to extract any distinct ideas from the vague
though eloquent declarations of the Fathers, or to as-
certain the degree of immortal glory and happiness
which they so confidently promised to those who were
so fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of re-
ligion. They inculcated with becoming diligence that
the fire of martyrdom supplied every defect and ex-
piated every sin ; that while the souls of ordinary
Christians were obliged to pass through a slow and
painful purification, the triumphant sufferers entered
into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where in
the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the
prophets they reigned with Christ and acted as his as-
sessors in the universal judgment of mankind.""^ It is

»Epist. ad Komanos.

^Com. vol. I, p. 136.

c Chap. XYI.

^ " Certatim gloriosa in certamina ruebantur, multique avid-
ius turn martyria gloriosis mortibus quaerebantur quam nunc
episcopatus pi avis ambitionibus appetuntur." Sulp. Severus
1: 11.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD. 153

true that not a few ideas savoring of superstition and
extravagance came to be attached to the boon of mar-
tyrdom, yet they grew out of the teachings of the
Scriptures already referred to, and show the interpre-
tation which in that age was given to passages re-
garded in modern times as obscure.

SECTION VI.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.

The last five verses of this chapter are almost uni-
versally assumed to be a description of the General
Judgment, at which the whole family of man will be
judged, at the end of time. A careful study of the
passage, however, in its connection, will disclose rea-
sons for doubt as to whether that is its true import.
Some very able scholars have taken a different view
of it.^

1. In the first place, such an understanding of it
impairs the uniti/ of the narration. It can scarcely
be denied that these verses are closely connected with
the preceding, and therefore with all that portion
of the book beginning with Chapter XII. If so,
then we are to presume that they relate to the same
general subject, viz : the overthrow and punishment of
the persecutors of the church. It was not within the

"Grotius regards it as describing "the punishment of some
antecedent to the General Judgment, as the glory of the mar-
tyrs precedes also that judgment" — quorundam ergo poena
judicium illud ultimum antecedet, sicut martyrum gloria ante-
cedet idem judicium. — He applies the happy New Jerusalem
state which follows to the flourishing period of the church be-
tween Constantine and Justinian.
8

154 THE FAB 0 U8IA.

design of the author here to discuss the condition or
character of the human family, as such. Why, then,
should the course of the prophecy be interrupted or
turned aside to set forth the ultimate destinies of the
race ? Not that the doctrine of a General Judgment
ib not true, but simply it was not relevant to the matter
here " ^ hand. As in so many cases, it is the costume
and phraseology employed and not its position or rela-
tions in the discourse that has led to its being referred
to so different a topic.^ But for these, it may safely be
said such a reference would never have been made.
We have already seen how indispensable it is in pro-
phetic interpretation that we keep clearly in mind the
sources of the imagery employed, and the understand-
ing they would have of it to whom its constant
recurrence in their own Scriptures made it familiar.

2. The source of that imagery is plainly in Daniel
7 : 9-11. Indeed the very great similarity between
that entire chapter of the earlier prophecy and this
part of the Apocalypse is recognized by all commen-
tators. There, too, was a hideous persecuting wild
Beast, the prototype, with variations, of the Beasts of
Revelation, who made war with the saints and pre-
vailed against them, until he was arrested by the
avenging interposition of heaven. There, too, was a

a "An unseasonable comparison of Matt. 25 : 31, et seq, where
we find the righteous and the wicked united in one scene of
judgment, and where the due distinction was not made between
the substance and the dramatic form, has here been productive
of much confusion, and has led to the dead being generally
viewed as all the dead without exception." Hengstenberg
Apoc. vol. ii, p. 376.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.

155

judgment scene exhibited not less majestic or sublime
than the one before us. Let the two be placed side
by side, that the striking resemblances between them
may be the more apparent.

DANIEL 7:9-11.

I beheld till the thrones were
cast down, and the Ancient of
days did sit, whose garment was
white as snow, and the hair of his
head like the pure wool: his
throne was like the fiery flame,
and his wheels as burning fire.
A fiery stream issued and came
forth from before him : thousand
thousands ministered unto him,
and ten thousand times ten thous-
and stood before him: the judg-
ment was set, and the books were
opened. I beheld then because
of the voice of the great words
which the horn spake : I beheld
even till the beast was slain, and
his body destroy^, and given to
the burning flame.

REVELATIONS 20: 11-15.

And I saw a great white throne ,
and him that sat on it, from whose
face the earth and the heaven fled
away; and there was found no
place for them. And I saw the
dead, small and great, stand be-
fore God; and the books were
opened: and another book was
opened, which is the book of life;
and the dead were judged out or
those things which were written
in the books, according to their
works. And the sea gave up the
dead which were in it ; and death
and hell delivered up the dead
which were in them: and they
were judged every man according
to their works. And death and
hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death. And
whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into
the lake of fire.

In each of these cases we have the throne and One
sitting upon it in resplendent majesty, the vast multi-
tudes standing before it, the opened books of remem-
brance, the judgment, and the casting of the condemned
into retributive fire. Now we know, because the
interpreting angel positively assures us of it, that
the first refers to the destruction of Daniel's Fourth
Beast, in other words, to Antiochus Epiphanes, the
great Syrian persecutor of the Jews, the prototype of
Nero and the persecuting emperors of the Christians
at Rome. Why should not the second have a like
application to the latter ? What else could they of the
Seven churches, mostly Jewish in birth and education,
and familiar from their childhood with the prophetic
imagery of their Scriptures, understand by it?

156 THE PABOUSIA.

3. The judgment here described is a judgment of
the dead only ; the General Judgment is to embrace
both ''Hhe quick and the dead.'''' Acts 10 : 42 ; 2 Tim.
4 : 1 ; 1 Peter 4 : 5. The latter is to be preceded by
the instantaneous change of the living into the
immortal state (1 Cor. 15 : 51 ; 1 Thess. 4 ; 17 ; Phil.
3 : 21), and by the resurrection of the dead. John 5 :
28, 29. But nothing of this kind is mentioned in
connection with the judgment before us. It is not the
living nor the risen that are judged, but those who are
dead. Four times is that term applied to them, as if
to emphasize the fact, and distinguish this from that
yet more comprehensive scene when the entire race of
man are to receive their trial and award.

What, then, is the import of the passage ?

As already remarked, I regard it as an integral part
of the prophecy relating the overthrow and punishment
of the persecutors of the church. The key to it is
found in the fifth verse of the chapter. "But the
rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years
were finished." We had been told the doom of the
Beast and his allies, and the humiliation and binding of
the Dragon whose servants they were. Next, we were
shown the glorious reward of the martyrs and those
who had proved faithful in this hour of great trial, —
the blessed resurrection, the thrones, and the crowns
to which they had attained. But what of "the rest of
the dead " — viz. those who did worship the beast, and
did join the deceived nations in their attack upon
Christianity ?

This clause of the fifth verse is evidently a paren-

THE JUDGMENT OF TEE DEAD. 157

thesis interposed in the description of the martyrs,
for the momentary purpose of contrasting their state
with that of the others. The narration goes immedi-
ately on, finishing that description, recounting the
irruption and overthrow of Gog and Magog, and then
taking up the subject so briefly hinted at and setting
forth the doom of " the rest."

These, it is said, "lived not [again] until the
thousand years were finished." The word " again " is
without authority and should be omitted. Not that
they were not in existence all this time, but that they
did not have the blessed resurrection-life attained by
the martyrs. Nor is it meant that they did so live
after the completion of the thousand years. The des-
ignation of a time before which a thing was not done,
does not of itself imply that it was done after that
time. Instances of this mode of speech are very
common in the Scriptures. 1 Sam. 15 : 35, " Samuel
came no more until the day of his death." Isa. 42 : 4,
" He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set
judgment in the earth." Matt. 5: 18, "Tz7Z heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law." Rom. 5 : 13, " Until the law, sin
was in the world." Matt. 1 : 25, "And knew her not,
till she had brought forth her first born son." *

This then was the judgment of the dead, — those

*"Helvidius abused greatly those words of St. Matthew (1:
25) ' He knew her not until she had brought forth her first born
son,' thereby gathering against tlie honor of the Blessed Virgin,
that a thing denied with special circumstances doth import an
opposite affirmative, when once that circumstance is expired,^*
Hooker V. 45, 2, quoted in Wordsworth Apoc. p. 67.

158 THE PARQUSIA.

who had been concerned in the persecutions of the
church either as partisans or the victims of Satan.
They are called " the dead " par eminence, to distin-
guish them from the martyrs who " lived " par emi-
nence. The universality of the judgment corresponds
to the universal dominion of Rome at that time ; the
phrase "the whole world" (rjyv ohoufievrjv oXr^v) of which
Satan was the deceiver (Ch. 12 : 9), being the well
known designation of the Roman Empire. Luke 2 :
1 ; Acts 11 : 28 ; 17 : 6 ; 24 : 5. These, with Death and
Hades — ^personifications before shown as connected
with persecution (Ch. 6 : 8) — and all whose names were
not found in the register of the faithful, are cast into
the lake of fire. This was the second death, contrasted
again with the life of the martyrs, which was the first
resurrection.

The import of this passage, then, as a whole, is very
simple. God will destroy the persecutors of his people
and reward the latter according to their fidelity or the
opposite. It is a prophecy having special reference to
the age in which John wrote ; and while the general
principles involved in it apply to all ages, its immediate
and direct fulfillment was among the things which it
was announced at the opening of the book must
" shortly come to pass."

CHAPTER V.

THE AGE OF CONQUEST.

Thus far we have come in the history of the King-
dom under the two-fold guidance of Prophecy and
Providence. The Parousia continues ; Christ is pres-
ent in his kingdom among men, and is steadily carry-
ing forward the government which is in his hand
toward the consummation.

That consummation is described generally in the
glowing visions of th^ ancient prophets, and in nu-
merous passages from our Lord's own sayings and
the writings of the apostles. I shall presently speak
of these more particularly. Suffice it to say here, that,
while expressed in general, often symbolic, terms, it
will be one equaling all that the most ardent hopes
of man have ventured to anticipate. Indeed, it is
expressly declared that neither the senses nor imagina-
tion of man are adequate to conceive of the glorious
reality. Though the "thousand years" of Rev. 20
refer to another event, it is by no means to be under-
stood that the world is not to have its millennium^ in
the sense usually denoted, of universal peace, rest, and
felicity.

The question now is as to the methods by which
that period is to be introduced ; and in respect to this
there are two theories.

159 - -

RSiTY

160 THE PAEOUSIA.

The first is that it is to take place suddenly; ushered
upon the world by a grand visible appearing of Christ
in the clouds of heaven, to destroy by his judgments
all the wicked, and with glorious power and majesty
set up his kingdom upon the earth. This is the view
advocated by Adventists and Millenarians generally.
For myself, I know of nothing to warrant it, or even
to give it plausibility. As to any such "coming" of
Christ, the Scriptures are silent. His real Parousia
began eighteen hundred years ago, and we know noth-
ing of any other. Or, if it did not, I can see no ground
for expecting it now. In the elaborate calculations of
prophetical arithmetic, which are so often advanced' to
prove its present near approach,! have no confidence.
The " times " and " days " of Daniel and the Apocalypse
have nothing to do with the subject, relating to things
wholly and long ago past. The principle on which
these periods, whatever they are, are converted into
"years," has no sufficient authorization. * The date
or dates from which it is customary to reckon them, are
both uncertain in themselves and irrelevant to the
matter in hand. The events in which it is expected
they will issue, such as the arrest of the course of hu-
man affairs, the sudden end of this mundane sphere,
the penal destruction of the unconverted, the confla-
gration of this globe, and the establishment of an
earthly kingdom at Jerusalem or elswhere in which he
will reign bodily and visibly for a thousand years — all
this seems to me without warrant from Scripture, to

aSee Prof. Cowles's Dissertation appended to his Commentary
on Ezekiel and Daniel, p. 450.

TEE AGE OF CONQUEST. 161

be derived from it only by violating the most obvious
and fundamental principles of interpretation, and in
direct contravention of what is positively taught us
as to the true history and destiny of this world.

The other, and what I deem the true, view is that
the consummation is to be reached by development,
under the operation of established laws, and may,
therefore, require many years, perhaps centuries, for
its attainment.

1. For, first, our Lord has expressly asserted this
to be the mode of progress in his kingdom. We have
before cited some of his words on this subject. " It
is," said he, " as if a man should cast seed into the
ground, and should sleep and rise, night and day, and
the seed should spring and grow up^ — first the blade,
then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." " It is
like a grain of mustard-seed, which when it is sown in
the earth is less than all the seeds that be in the earth,
but when it is sown it groweth up and becometh
greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches,
so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the
shadow of it." Mark 4 : 26-32. " It is like leaven,
which a woman took and hid in three measures of
meal till the whole was leavened." Matt. 13 : 33. In
other words, development from within, growth from
its own divinely implanted law of life, is the mode of
that kingdom's advancement. We do not mean that
there is not a constant providential superintendence
over it, guarding and guiding it, and above all a con-
stant ministry of the Holy Spirit, quickening its life,
and supplying ever new vital forces, but that all this

162 THE PAROUSIA,

is under the normal law of the Kingdom. Now, it
seems to me in the highest degree unreasonable to
assume that Christ is going to violate or ignore this
principle which he has himself so clearly enunciated,
and by a sudden interference, with miracle and violence,
arrest this established course of things and introduce
another. He will not devastate the growing field, and
instantaneously create a crop. He will not throw
away the " stone cut out without hands," and let down
from heaven the mighty mountain which is to fill the
whole earth. To do so is to confess his own law of
growth a failure, or to manifest a capriciousness of
plan and purpose inconsistent with the character of
Him " with whom is no variableness nor shadow of
turning."

2. What was thus asserted in principle as the law
of growth in Christ's Kingdom, has been confirmed in
fact. It is now two thousand years, nearly, since that
kingdom was first established, and during all this period
the vital forces implanted in it have been working ;
and it is these, under the fostering care of God's
providence and Spirit, which have resulted in what we
see to-day of the majestic prevalence and power of
Christianity. Never has there been any sudden inter-
vention of extraordinary force in its behalf, to remove
obstacles, to save from disasters, to destroy enemies,
or to impart miraculous powers. All pretenses of
that sort recorded in medieval legends or the lives of
the saints, are myths, unworthy of a moment's serious
attention. Read the Acts of the Apostles, the gen-
uine writings of the Christian Fathers, the records of

THE AGE OF CONQUEST. 163

authentic history, and you discern in them the operation
of the same spiritual forces, and only the same, which
we see at work in our own day. From the scenes of
the day of Pentecost which ushered in the new King-
dom, to the Reformation under Luther and Calvin
and Knox, and the revivals attending the preaching of
Edwards and Whitefield and Wesley, and our own
Moody and Sankey, the story of salvation has ever been
one and the same. Men have been sanctified through
the truth. Through the foolishness of preaching God
has saved them that believe. The Lord has daily
added the saved to the church. And what has been
we have every reason to believe will be, save that there
may be increase in the rate of progress. Nations, by
and by, will be born in a day, nevertheless, they will
be horn as they always were, — as individual souls are
— by the Spirit of God, through belief of the truth.
There never has been any other mode of spiritual
conquest for the kingdom of our Lord, and there is no
warrant for believing there ever will be.

3. This fundamental law of the spiritual kingdom
of Christ, receives strong confirmation from the demon-
strations of science in respect to the physical history
of the globe. The crust of the earth has been sub-
jected to innumerable changes in the long lapse of ages.
Systems of rock-formations have followed systems,
each with its distinctive fossils, vegetable and animal ;
every point of the earth's surface has been again and
again alternately submerged under the ocean, and
elevated above it; climates the most diverse have
prevailed, including even torrid arctics and frigid

164 THE PAROUSIA.

tropics ; races of plants and animals, ranging from the
humblest seaweed to the California pine, from the
microscopic ocean shell, through successive tribes of
mollusks, fishes, saurians, and mammals, have come
into being, have lived and died and become extinct.
Man, the present lord of creation, is but "of yesterday,"
the youngest, as he is the highest, of these works of
God. Yet this immeasurable series of changes, affect-
ing both the earth and its inhabitants, has been wrought,
as is now well established, by natural causes, ordained
by the Creator indeed, but working each slowly and
progressively according to its own law. Theories of
catastrophes and " cataclysms " changing suddenly the
condition of the globe, or of its flora and fauna, except
to a very limited extent, are now almost wholly dis-
carded. Says Sir Charles Lyell, than whom there is
no higher authority on these matters, " I see no reason
for supposing that any part of the revolutions in
physical geography — indicate any catastrophe greater
than those which the present generation has wit-
nessed." * And Professor Dawson, " In all the lapse
of geological time there has been an absolute uniform-
ity of natural law. The same grand machinery of
force and matter has been in use throughout all the
ages, working out the great plan. Yet the plan has
been progressive and advancing, nevertheless. The
tmiformity has been in the methods ; the results have
presented a wondrous diversity and development." ^
Now, I concede that this is not proof that a similar

* Antiquity of Man, p. 287.

^ Story of the Earth and Man, p. 3.

THE AGE OF CONQUEST. 165

law of progress prevails in God's spiritual kingdom,
but it certainly creates a strong presumption in its
favor. It is the same God who worketh all in all.
He is not restricted in time, as man is ; he can take
enough for all he desires. He has eternity for his
working day, and needs no coups de main^ no sudden
surprises, for the accomplishment of his vast designs.
Invisible in his own being to the eyes of his creatures,
he is invisible also in the methods by which he acts ;
making it his glory "to conceal a matter," till the
grand results thereof are matured and may be exhibited
in their perfection and beneficence to his admiring
universe.

In hinting at the course of this progressive develop-
ment,— for I can do no more — we have but little help
from revelation. Prophecy while so full and impas-
sioned in describing the consummation itself, gives but
the merest glimpse of the several steps or stages that
are to lead to it. I venture to suggest only the follow-
ing:

1. Christianity is to become universal throughout
the earth. This implies, first, that its territory and
population are to become known to Christian nations.
In this view, the career of discovery, which may be
dated from the time of Columbus, has been closely
allied with the advancement of the gospel. In these
four hundred years, a new continent has been found,
explored, colonized, and to a large extent christian-
ized. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope and
of the passage to India, has opened all Southern and
Eastern Asia to the knowledge, the commerce and

166 THE PAROUSIA.

the religion of Europe. Captain Cook sailed round
the world, and made known the innumerable islands
of the Pacific, where, since then, nations of cannibals
have been raised from the deepest degradation, and
made living witnesses of the transforming power of
the gospel. Even Africa, so long hermetically sealed
and hopelessly bound in the fetters of fetichism and
slavery, is now revealing its mysteries, and showing
us new missionary fields, inviting immediate occupa-
tion, of the most promising character. And, in gen-
eral, I think it may be safely said, in view of the
vastly improved methods of navigation and travel, the
spirit of scientific inquiry, the enlarged demands of
commerce, and the increase of missionary zeal
throughout all branches of the Christian church, that
within less than fifty years, the entire territory of our
habitable globe will have been explored and opened
to the access of the gospel.

2. Christianity is to become the sole religion of
mankind. It is even now the only one which is mak-
ing any progress in the world. All the old systems
of the East, though still holding in their embrace a
majority of the race, are fast sinking into decrepitude,
and wherever they come into contact with Christianity,
are falling before it. Mohammedanism sleeps in its
fatalistic sensualism, with no power to resist the en-
croachment of Western nations. Brahminism finds
its Vedas convicted of false science and philosophy, in
the presence of the Christian Scriptures. Buddhism,
Confucianism and Sintism can no longer shut them-
selves away from the light behind the barriers of

THE AGE OF CONQUEST. 167

national exclusiveness. The grosser forms of idolatry,
prevailing among savage tribes, all yield at the ap-
proach of the gospel borne to them from the lands of
civilization. Look the world over, and we can find
no system of false religion propagating itself as in
past ages, none aggressive as against other systems,
none even holding its own against the progress of
Christianity. Here, too, we risk little in the prophe-
cy that a single hundred years from the present time
may see the latter the only religion of the world
recognized as true.

3. Christianity is to be greatly intensified in power.
It is to bring those who are subject to it to a higher
plane of experience, a more intelligent devotion to
Christ's service, a more symmetrical and perfect type
of character. It is to make conquests among the un-
converted, gathering them in rich, continuous harvests
into the kingdom of the Lord. Children of pious
parents are to grow up into Christ from their birth.
Revivals are to be multiplied with a power and per-
vasiveness such as the world has not before seen.
Sectarian dissensions in the church are to diminish in
bitterness, and Christian love and unity show their
blessed fruits, removing what has for ages been one of
the chief hindrances to the advancement of the truth,
and increasing the power of the church a hundred
fold for conquests over infidelity, and all intrenched
and organized forms of evil. To a student of reli-
gious history, the progress which has been made dur-
ing the last hundred years in all these respects appears
no way inferior to that which has been witnessed in

168 THE PAROUSIA,

all the other departments of the world's career. It
has been a century of revivals, such as no former age
has known. In our own country, vast as has been the
growth of population, the increase of evangelical
churches, both in numbers and membership, has been
in a still larger ratio. It has been the era of missions,
which, from the humblest beginnings, have now belted
the globe with their stations and their churches of na-
tive converts. It has introduced a new age of benev-
olence, teaching that no man liveth to himself, that
Christianity is, in its essence, the following of Christ,
the Master, in his work of saving men. It has, we
doubt not, elevated the standard of individual Chris-
tian character, and promoted through society as a
whole a more intelligent faith and a purer morality.
Vast as are the evils that remain, numerous and gross
as are the crimes which shock us, they are still less
prevalent, as compared with the population, than in
any former age that can be named since the time
when an inspired pen drew that awful portraiture in
the first chapter of Romans of the state of society in
the capital and mistress of the world. In a word, the
gospel is beginning to mature its fruit; and it only
needs such pentecostal outpourings of the Spirit as
we have already seen some small earnests of, and as,
we believe, are soon to be multiplied beyond all
precedent, to give it an intensity as well as spread of
power, that shall, ere many centuries pass, bring the
whole population of the globe within its saving
efficacy.

4. Christianity become thus universal and potent

THE AGE OF CONQUEST. 169

in its sway over men as individuals, is to pervade all
the forces that mold human character and affect the
condition of the world. Among these forces are
government, law, education, science, art, philosophy,
commerce, fashion, domestic economy, employments,
etc. We have only to conceive of all these as made
thoroughly Christian, as they will when men them-
selves become such, to see that under them this will
become literally a "new world." What mighty
wastes of all that constitutes the world's life, through
war, and oppression, and lust, and robbery, and crime
of all sorts, will be stayed ! What inconceivable in-
crease of all that will tend to make it purer and better,
will accrue ! How rapid will then be its progress in
subduing the wildernesses, enlarging the habitable
area of the earth, multiplying wealth, increasing the
means of living and the average duration of life, ele-
vating the tastes and the pleasures of mankind, enno-
bling their aspirations, in a word, uplifting the family
of man, and realizing for him the rapturous predictions
of the prophets as to the latter-day blessedness and
glory of the earth ! We have no doubt that it is in
precisely this way that those predictions are to reach
their fulfillment. The earth itself is to be regenerated
morally and physically, the latter through the former.
God is going to make new heavens and a new earth,
but he will do it not by sudden miracle, but by the
hands of the renewed and sanctified inhabitants of
the earth. He is to be in the hearts of men as the
new Creator who makes all things new. It is thus
that his tabernacle is to be with them, and he will

170 THE PAROUSIA.

dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and
God himself shall be with them and be their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the
former things are passed away.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONSUMMATION".

" Then cometh the end, when he shall have deliv-
ered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when
he shall have put down all rule and authority and
power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies
under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed
is death." 1 Cor. 15 : 24-26.

The word end — to zeXo^ — may signify either the
termination of a thing, or its consummation, that in
which ifc eventuates. Instances of the latter meaning
are the following : Matt. 26 : 28, " Peter went in to
see the end," i. e. the result or outcome of the proceed-
ings. Rom. 6 : 21, " The end of those things is
death." James 5 : 11, " Ye have heard of the patience
of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord," i. e. the
issue which God gave to his trials. 1 Peter 1: 9,
"Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your
souls." Also 2 Cor. 11 : 15 ; Phil. 3 : 19 ; Heb. 6:8;
1 Pet. 4: IT; etc.

I take it that this is the meaning of the word in
this place, as denoting the issue or consummation of
Christ's reign as King. We shall presently see reasons
which forbid us to understand it in the other sense, —
that of cessation. It was the object of the apostle in
this sublime chapter of the resurrection, not to say

171

172 THE PABOUSIA.

how long Christ would reign, but what should be its
result, the climax of all his victories over sin and hell.
As death is the consummation of all the evils that can
happen to man on earth ; as all sin and pain and woe
precede and find their culmination in this, so the saving
power of Christ reaches equally far, and having over-
come all other woes delivers him at last from the
power of death itself.

To appreciate fully this language of the apostle we
must recur, as in former cases, to the conceptions of
the Jews as to the origin of sin and death. Whatever
modern skepticism may say on the subject, the devil was
a very real being in their system of belief. It was in
his temptation of our first parents that sin originated,
and death as the fruit of sin. From that time, he is
represented as having a kingdom on earth antagonistic
to the kingdom of Jehovah. Matt. 12 : 26 ; Luke 11
18. He is called " the god of this world," (2 Cor. 4
4), and " the prince of this world," John 12 : 31 ; 14
30 ; 16 : 11. Other evil spirits subject to his authority
are called " his angels." Matt. 25 : 41. He is " the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh
in the children of disobedience." Eph. 2 : 2. He is
the leader of " principalities and powers, the rulers of
the darkness of this world, spirits of wickedness in high
places." Eph. 6 : 12 ; Rom. 8 : 38. In this capacity
of the prince of evil he is ever active in inciting to
sin. He filled the heart of Ananias and Sapphira to
lie to the Holy Ghost. Acts 6:3. He prompted
Judas to betray his Lord. John 13 : 2. He instigated
the hostility of the Pharisees to Jesus. John 8 : 44.

THE CONSUMMATION. 173

He afflicted men with disease, evil possessions, and all
kinds of suffering. Acts 10 : 38. And as his crown-
ing terror, he had the "power of death" by which he
kept men all their lives in bondage. Heb. 2 : 14.

Now, in conformity with these representations of the
power and malevolence of Satan, we find that the
work of Christ as King and Saviour is described as
the defeat of Satan and the destruction of his kingdom.
The first grand prophecy of the future was that the
seed of the tempted and sinning woman should bruise
the tempter's head. When Jesus began his works of
mercy, he cast out devils. When the Seventy return-
ing from their mission reported the wonderful fact
that they had power to do the same, their Master
exulted in spirit as already witnessing the downfall of
the enemy's kingdom. " I beheld," said he, " Satan
as lightning falling from heaven." Luke 10 ; 18. It
was his to " bind the strong man, and despoil him of
his goods." Matt. 12 : 29. It was " for this very pur-
pose that he was manifested, that he might destroy the
works of the devil." 1 John 3 : 8. Nay, even the last
and most dreaded power of the great adversary should
be wrested from him. Jesus himself died " that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of
death, and deliver them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Heb. 2 :
14, 15.

It is precisely the same truth, then, I cannot doubt,
which is meant to be asserted in this chapter of the
resurrection. This is the end, the consummation,
when the reigning Messiah shall have wrested from

174 THE PABOUSIA.

Satan his usurped kingdom over man, and delivered it
to the Father from whom it was stolen, having put
down (Gr. brought to nought) all rebellious rule,
authority and power. For by the scope of his appoint-
ment as Messianic King, he must reign till he hath
put all enemies under his feet ; the last, the supreme
one of all is death.

From the Jewish — which is, too, the Bible — stand-
point, then, no more pregnant prophecy of the coming
era of holiness and blessedness could have been uttered
than the subjugation of the kingdom of Satan, the
putting down of all evil rule, authority, and power.
It will be in truth a millennium, not of duration but
of glory, of which the far inferior thousand years of
his binding in the abyss, that ended his one work of
making war on the church, were but a faint type and
pledge. That was to end persecution ; this will end
all his devilish work on earth. That ended his career
for ever as a foe in arms, reeking with the blood of
the saints ; this will end it in his whole character and
capacity as an enemy of God and his kingdom on earth.

I will not presume to imagine what this world will
become when sin is destroyed, and when all its inhab-
itants and all its forces shall become holy to the Lord.
Under the inspiration of such a theme, the prophets
labored with raptures unutterable. Language was all
too poor to set forth the wonders that beamed upon their
ecstatic vision. All sublime imagery, all grouping of
what was beauty to the eye, and melody to the ear, of
what was grateful to sense, and inciting to expectation,
and assuring to hope, was used by them, and when they

TBE CONSUMMATION. 175

had said all, it remained to add that " eye hath not
seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man the things which God hath prepared for
them that love him."

So shall be accomplished the Kingly function of
the Lord under his Parousia. It is a work begun at
his ascension, carried forward through the snccessive
ages of persecution, conquest, and victory, and then
perpetuated in a reign of righteousness and blessed-
ness for ever. I hope to show that his associated
works as the Life-Giver and Judge are comple-
mentary and auxiliary to this, the three together con-
stituting the work of that Parousia which he promised
to his people, and which he bade them make their
inspiration and their hope.

"Earth, thou grain of sand on the shore of the
universe of God ; thou Bethlehem amongst the princely
cities of the heavens ; thou art and remainest the loved
one amongst ten thousand suns and worlds, the chosen
of God ! Thee will he again visit, and then thou wilt
prepare a throne for him, as thou gavest him a manger
cradle. In his radiant glory thou wilt rejoice, as thou
didst once drink his blood and tears, and mourn his
death. On thee has the Lord a great work to com-
plete!"*

» Presselj quoted by Geikie, Life of Christ vol. 2, p. 608.

CHAPTER YII.

THE PERPETUITY OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM.

The views I have advanced in the preceding chap-
ters will be objected to on the ground that they omit
all mention of the Resurrection and General Judg-
ment, as related to the consummation of Christ's
Kingdom ; also, as being inconsistent with the com-
monly received doctrines of his ultimate surrender of
that Kingdom to the Father, and the end of the pres-
ent world. The first two of these topics I have pur-
posely deferred for consideration by themselves ; the
remaining two may appropriately be considered here.

The doctrine of the surrender by Christ of his
Kingdom to the Father is stated by Dr. Hodge, thus :
"That dominion to which he was exalted after his
resurrection, when all power in heaven and earth
was committed into his hands — this kingdom which
he exercises as the Theanthropos, and which extends
over all principalities and powers, he is to deliver up
when the work of redemption is accomplished. He
was invested with this dominion in his mediatorial
character, for the purpose of carrying on the work to
its consummation. When that is done, 2. e, when he
has subdued all his enemies, then he will no longer
reign over the universe as mediator." *

a Com. 1 Cor. 15 : 24.

176

PERPETUITY OF CHRIST S KINGDOM. 177

This is surely a remarkable doctrine. That so great
a change should take place in the relations of the Per-
sons of the Godhead to each other and to man ; that
the work of redemption, founded in such a sacrifice
and carried forward under the administration of the
Holy Spirit, should like a human undertaking have run
through its career and be ready to vanish away, is one
that tasks all our powers to conceive of. That a reign
so august should cease at the moment of victory ; that
a throne should be abandoned just when it becomes an
undisputed one ; that a kingdom should be given up
when it has attained universal peace and rest, are pro-
positions, to be received indeed if sufficiently revealed,
but in support of which we certainly have a right to
demand the very clear testimony of God's word.

It is no less astonishing that such a truth, if it be a
truth, is supposed to be taught in but a single passage
of the Scriptures. Christ himself, when so fully pre-
dicting the events of his Parousia, gives not a hint of
the kind. The Seer of Patmos caught not a glimpse
of it in all the grand apocalypse disclosed to him.
None of the apostolic writers, save one, makes the
slightest allusion to it, and he only in a single inciden-
tal remark while discussing another topic. Of course,
all this does not disprove its truth, but it does excite
our surprise, and warrant a very careful examination
of the passage supposed to teach it.

That passage is the one before considered in part in

1 Cor. 15 : 24, 25, 28. *'Then cometh the end, when

he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even

the Father. — For he must reign till he hath put all

9

178 THE PAROUSIA.

enemies under his feet. — And when all things shall be
subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be
subject unto him that put all things under him, that
God may be all in all."

I have already adduced reasons, which seem to me
demonstrative, for understanding the "kingdom" here
mentioned, not of Christ's own received by him at his
ascension, but of the usurped but now subdued king-
dom of Satan. I submit that this view better har-
monizes with the apostolic subject and course of
thought, which are Christ's victory over the Prince of
death, thereby obtaining a new resurrection life for his
people.

The declaration "He must reign till he hath put all
enemies under his feet," does not imply chat he will
not reign after that. See remarks on this mode of
expression on page 157.

The translation of the 28th verse, in our version,
does not conform to the order of the words as they
stand in the Greek, — tots xal a'jTO^ 6 ulb^ dKOTayrj-
aeTac. The emphatic word is rors, then^ making prom-
inent the time referred to. This is qualified by xat^
also, connecting it with the previous time, and showing
that what is affirmed shall be true then also as it had
been before. The victorious Messiah will still hold a del-
egated throne as he had previously done, his kingdom
having been received from his Father. Dan. 7 : 14 ;
Luke 19 : 12 ; 22 : 29 ; John 5 : 22, 27 ; Eph. 1 : 20-23 ;
Phil. 2 : 9-11 ; Heb. 1:4; Rev. 3 : 21. But our com-
mon version renders xac as if connected with vtb^,
the So7i also, i. e. as well as the " all things," — which

PERPETUITY OF CHRISrS KINGDOM. 179

makes the passage imply that his authority had not
before been a delegated one ; that the subordination
then first takes place, which we know is not the truth.
This subjection, then, after his victory over Satan, no
more implies a surrender of his kingdom to the Father
than it ever had done. It was from the first a king-
dom given to him, held in subordination to the Father's
will ; and such, even after his last crowning victory
over his enemy and man's, it will continue to be.

While the passage, then, in its terms, does not, on
careful examination, teach the alleged doctrine of
Christ's surrender of his kingdom, there are many
other facts which absolutely forbid such an interpre-
tation.

1. It is often and with the utmost emphasis affirmed
that his kingdom is to be without end.

" The God of heaven," said Daniel, " shall set up a
kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the
kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall
break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and
it shall stand for ever." " There was given him
dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people,
nations, and languages should serve him : his dominion
is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."
Dan. 2 : 44 ; 7 : 14. " Unto us a child is born ; unto
us a Son is given ; and the government shall be upon
his shoulder. * * * Of the increase of his govern-
ment and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne
of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to
establish it with judgment and with justice from hence-

180 THE PABOUSIA.

forth even for ever.*' Isa. 9:6, 7. "He shall be
great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest ; and
the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his
father David, and he shall reign over the house of
Jacob for ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no
end." Luke 1 : 32, 33. The author of the Epistle to
the Hebrev^^s quotes from the XLVth psalm and
expressly applies to Christ in his mediatorial kingdom
the words of David, "To the Son he saith. Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever." Heb. 1 : 10.
In the Apocalypse, John blends with his salutation to
the churches the solemn doxology, " Unto him that
loved us, and hath washed us from our sins in his own
blood, * * * to him be glory and dominion for
ever. Amen." Rev. 1 : 5, 6. At the sounding of the
seventh angel, which signalizes the very epoch before
us, when " the kingdoms of this world are become the
kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ," — even in
that moment of supreme victory, it is declared, not
that his dominion shall now be surrendered, but that
" he shall reign for ever and ever." Rev. 11 : 15.
And in the New Jerusalem state, which is universally
conceded to be subsequent to the grand consummation
and the delivery of the kingdom to the Father, we
find the Son still on the throne, shedding the light of
his glory upon the redeemed, and receiving their wor-
ship for ever. " The Lord God Almighty — and the
Lamb are the temple of it." " The glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof," etc.
Rev. 21 : 22, 23.

PERPETUITY OF CHRIST S KINGDOM. 181

It is not, of course, to be supposed that these passages
are overlooked or disregarded by those who believe
in the surrender of Christ's kingdom, and his ceasing
to reign as Mediator. Their idea is that after that
event, when the redeemed of earth are all gathered in
safety into heaven, ancl all sin is put down or destroyed,
when God alone will " rule with majesty serene and
undisturbed," * Christ will then be, in a subordinate
sense, " head and sovereign " ^ over his people ; and
that it is this fact only which is intended to be taught
in the passages quoted. Viewing the state of blessed-
ness which they will have attained in heaven after
death and judgment and the ending of all sin and all
the powers of sin as a " kingdom," still under Christ's
immediate care, that this kingdom will never end, —
which is simply saying that the happiness of the
redeemed will be eternal. But while this is an un-
doubted and glorious truth, it does not seem possible
to make it that which these passages mean to affirm.
If we can understand the nature of a mediatorial
kingdom, — a kingdom of grace, wherein are exercised
the divine prerogatives of giving the Spirit, interces-
sion, pardon, and justification, — a kingdom, having
indeed its throne in heaven at the right hand of the
Father, but existing and carried forward here on earth,
— the kingdom of heaven among men, — it is this king-
dom that is referred to in these predictions of its
perpetuity.

Look again at the language. It was the kingdom

»Kling, in Lange's Com. 1 Cor. 15: 1-28, p. 318.
* Hodge, Com. on 1 Cor., p. 330.

182 THE PAROUSIA.

that was to be set up " in the days of these kings,"
and that "should break in pieces and consume" all
earthly kingdoms, that should stand for ever. This,
most surely, was the mediatorial kingdom, the con-
quering and subduing kingdom, and it is of this that
the perpetuity is affirmed. Is not "the increase of
his government and peace " something to be realized
in time ? Does not the " throne of David " represent
his kingdom among men, and the "house of Jacob,"
his universal earthly church ? The throne which
belongs to the Son for ever and ever — is it not one
which, according to the argument in Heb. 1 : 8, per-
tains to him as Mediator ? Surely, there can be no
doubt on this point. Indeed, we know of nothing in
all the range of the Scriptures, apart from this solitary
text, which warrants or suggests any such distinction
between Christ's reign as Mediator, and that which is
to be given him after delivering up the kingdom. Is
it, — and we ask with the utmost deference for the
judgment of the eminent theologians who have main-
tained it — any thing more than a device for reconciling
these passages with the assumed finite duration of his
earthly kingdom, involved in the greater assumption
of the finite duration of this world where it is to be ?
In the closing visions of Isaiah, which are universally
held to relate to Christ's kingdom, the blessedness and
glory of that kingdom are set forth under the figure
of "new heavens and a new earth," — and the descrip-
tion which follows shows that reference must be had to
a state of things on earth. Isa. Q^ : 17-25. It is then
added that that state of things shall be perpetual.

PERPETUITY OF CUEISTS KINGDOM. 183

Isa. 6Q : 22, 23. " For as the new heavens and the
new earth, which 1 will make, shall remain before me,
saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name
remain. And it shall come to pass that from one new
moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another,
shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the
Lord." There can be no question, surely, of the
meaning of this prophecy. The church of God, the
spiritual and holy seed of Abraham constituting a new
Jerusalem, shall mtiintain his worship from age to age,
in which all the living family of man shall engage,
having ever before them, as typified in the ceaseless
burnings of the Vale of Hinnom, the punishment of
the wicked. *' They shall remain before me^ saith the
Lord"; language excluding the idea of a termination.
" The idea is," says Mr. Barnes, " that the state of
things here described would be permanent and
abiding."

Besides these express testimonies to the perpetuity
of Christ's kingdom, there are other considerations
of scarcely less weight. That kingdom he received
as a reward for his humiliation and sufferings in the
work of redemption. " Wherefore, God hath highly
exalted him, and given him a name that is above every
name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and
things under the earth ; and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father." Phil. 2 : 9-11. But is that reward to
cease the moment in which the work for which it is
bestowed is completed ? "Are not the gifts and calling

184 THE PAROUSIA.

of God without repentance ? Shall he so soon grow
weary of honoring his Son ? Shall the obedience of
his people be crowned with eternal rewards, and the
obedience of his Son unto death, even the death of the
cross, be crowned with only a temporary dominion and
glory ? And shall he cease to be Lord and King at the
very time that every knee shall bow to him and every
tongue confess that he is Lord ? Shall that kingdom
which he first purchased with his own blood, and then
secured to himself by putting down all rule and all
authority and power opposed to his reign, be surren-
dered at the very moment when every tongue shall
confess that he is the rightful sovereign of the
universe ? " *

It is, perhaps, anotlier form of the same truth which
is given in the statement that Christ was "appointed
heir of all things." Heb. 1 : 2. Compare Matt. 11 :
27 ; 28 : 18 ; John 17 : 2, 7, 9, 22. That is, he received
from the Father the created universe, to be possessed.
and governed by him, as a son receives a patrimony
from his father. What else can be denoted by this
figure than his perfect and perpetual right to that
which he inherits ? If the father takes back what is
thus given, he disinherits his son. Is Christ then,
the moment he comes into full and undisputed pos-
session of his kingdom, to be disinherited? Is the
temporary occupancy thus implied all that is meant,
— a tenure which, as compared with the eternity which
follows, is barely for a moment ?

Further ; it is the participation of the honors and

• Van Valkeiiburgli, in Am. Bib Rep. Oct. 1839, p. 442.

PEBPETUITY OF CHRIST S KINGDOM. 185

the felicity of this kingdom which is to constitute the
blessedness of the redeemed. They are to be " joint-
heu's with Christ ;" to " sit with him in his throne ;" to
"reign with Christ ;" to be partakers of the glory given
him by the Father, etc. Rom. 8 : 17 ; Rev. 3 : 21 ; 2
Tim. 2 : 12 ; John 17 : 22. What, then, is to become
of their reward if this kingdom is transient, — if it is
to be surrendered to the Father and be held by Christ
himself no more ?

It is to be remembered, also, that Christ's office as
Priest is expressly declared to be eternal. Nothing
can be more certain than that this office pertains to
him as Mediator, and its exercise is one of the functions
of his mediatorial kingdom. It implies that its admin-
istration is based on the great sacrifice offered by him
for sin, the presentation of that sacrifice before his
Father's throne in behalf of his people, and the sover-
eign act of justification bestowed on them because of
their acceptance thereof by faith. But these priestly
offices of the Redeemer are never to cease. He is "a
priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek." He
" ever (Tiavrore) liveth to make intercession for them."
" The Son who is consecrated forever more," etc.
Heb. 6:6; 7 : 17, 21, 25, 28. And in the New Jeru-
salem itself, "the river of the water of life," the emblem
of the eternal blessedness of the saints, " proceedeth
out of the throne of God and the Lamh,^^ — a recogni-
tion of the priestly character of the Redeemer as the
everlasting source of life and salvation to men.

I will cite only one more passage bearing on this
topic, which it seems to me is of itself absolutely

186 tht: parousia.

decisive against the common view. In the twelfth of
Hebrews, the apostle is warning his brethren in the
most solemn manner against the rejection of the gospel.
He reminds them of the doom of those who rejected
the Mosaic dispensation at Sinai, — a dispensation inaug-
urated by lightnings and earthquakes in token of the
awful presence of Jehovah. " The whole mount
quaked greatly." Ex. 19 : 18. But the new dispen-
sation of the Messiah is grander than that because
more abiding. This he proves from a passage in
Haggai 2:6. " Yet once more I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven." And this phrase he says,
" yet once more " — iu drra^ — indicates a change —
fierd&eacv — (literally, a passing away) of those things
that are shaken, as of things that are made, that
those things which cannot be shaken may remain." In
other words, the divine arrangement is to be changed
but onee^ i. e. when the Mosaic gives place to the
Messianic, — of course, then, the latter is to continue
unchanged. " Wherefore," he adds, " we receiving a
kingdom which cannot he moved, let us have grace
whereby we may serve God acceptably and with godly
fear." We cannot well conceive any thing more deci-
sive than this. Not only the terms themselves but
the argument requires the perpetuity of Christ's king-
dom. To affirm that another metathesis will take
place, by which it shall come to an " end," in the sense
of a termination, seems to us to be, if any thing can
be, an explicit contradiction of the inspired word of
God.

The conclusion which we have now reached will

PERPETUITY OF CHRISTS KINGDOM. 187

doubtless be assailed with yet more confidence from
another quarter^ It will be held to be inconsistent
with the doctrine, supposed to be revealed in the
Scriptures, of the end of the world. That certainly
cannot be an everlasting kingdom on earth, if the earth
itself is to be destroyed, and the duration of man upon
it in the present order of things is to cease. Let it
not be considered improper, then, to inquire what the
Scriptures really teach us on this subject.

CHAPTER IX.

THE END OF THE WORLD.

The phrase is not unfrequently found in the New
Testament. Matt. 13 : 39, 40, 49. ^'The harvest is
the end of the world." Matt. 24 : 3, '^What shall be
the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world ?"
Matt. 28 : 20, *'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world." Heb. 9 : 26, "Now once in
the end of the world (Gr. Avorlds), hath he appeared
to put away sin." 1 Cor. 10 : 11, "They are written
for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world
(Gr. worlds) are come."

The original word here translated world is ahbvy
which, as all who are tolerably conversant with Jew-
ish phraseology know, has no reference to the earth as
a planet. It is properly a designation of time^ nearly
corresponding to our word age. The Jews regarded
all time as divided into successive periods to which
they applied this term, such as that which preceded
creation, the ante-diluvian, the one covered by the
duration of the Mosaic theocracy, and that in which
the Messiah was to reign. This is probably its mean-
ing in Heb. 1:2; "By whom — Christ — he made the
worlds, i. e., he established and carried through the
orderly succession of the ages."^ The last two of these

* Tayler Lewis's Six Days of Creation, pp. 353, 355.

188

THE END OF THE WORLD, 189

periods are most frequently mentioned in the Scrip-
tures. Living, as the sacred writers did, under the
Mosaic dispensation, they denominated its period as
"the aion that now is," and that of the Messiah, then
future, as "the aion that is to come." The two to-
gether, covering the whole duration of the future, came
to be equivalent to that duration, in other words,
everlasting, — as in the declaration, "Whosever speaketh
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him,
neither in this world (^aion) neither in the world(azon)
to come." Matt. 11 : 32. When, passing the boun-
daries of time, they wished to speak of eternal things,
as of the retributions of the righteous and the wicked,
or of the existence of God, they intensified the idea by
reduplications of the same word. "To him be glory
for ever and ever" (Gr. through ages of ages). Gal.
1:5; Phil. 4 : 20 ; 1 Tim. 1 : IT ; 1 Peter 5 : 11.
"They shall reign with him forever." Rev. 22: 5.
"The smoke of their torment ascendeth forever."
Rev. 14: 11; 19: 3; 20: 10. In Epli. 3: 21, the
expression is still more remarkable. "Unto him be
glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all
ages, world without end," — Gr. "through all gener-
ations of the aion of the aions," e/c r.daa^ rac yzvefn;
TOO auduoc^ rwv alwvwv.^

When our Lord and his apostles, therefore, spoke of
the "end of the world," they used the word, we can-
not doubt, in the sense that was customary in that day,

* See an able and most valuable exhibition of the import of
this word in Prof. Tayler Lewis's "Six Days of Creation," pp.
352-385.

190 THE PAEOUSIA.

the only sense in which it was possible to have
been understood by those whom they addressed.
The parable of the tares, like nearly all the others de-
livered by our Saviour in that stage of his ministry, was
designed to teach the contrast between the coming
kingdom of heaven and that under which they had
hitherto lived. Of the latter, all were reckoned as
subjects who were of the seed of Abraham, whether
strictly righteous or not. This was the one ground of
pride and self-confidence among the Jews that con-
stantly hindered their reception of the gospel. John
had to dash it in pieces in those fearful words, "Ye
brood of vipers — think not to say within yourselves,
we have Abraham to our father." A large part of
the Sermon on the Mount is directed to the same end.
So with these parables. In the field which God had
first sown by Moses with good seed, the tares were
then growing with the wheat, and in that closing por-
tion of the age greatly outnumbered and choked it.
But in the end of that age, i. e., under his own new
kingdom of heaven, a different law would prevail.
None could be a member of that kingdom but by a
new birth, higher than any earthly pedigree. John
3 : 3. Not saying, "Lord, Lord," would make one a
subject of it, but doing the will of God. Matt. 7 : 21.
All others would be gathered out of his field, and cast
like a fruitless tree or winnowed chaff into the fire.
This was what Malachi had predicted of the times of
the Messiah (Matt. 3 : 2, 5 ; 4 : 1) — and John, when
preaching the near approach of the kingdom. Matt.
3 : 7-12. To the same effect was the parable of the

THE END OF THE WOBLD. 191

drag-net. And the time and the signs when this great
change should take place, — when the old imperfect
Jewish aion should be superseded by the new spiritual
aion to come, were what the disciples inquired about,
on the Mount of Olives, after Christ had uttered his
denunciations against the city and temple, which they
evidently understood as referring to that event. It
seems to me plain that no reference could have been
intended by them to the destruction of the earth as a
planet, or its discontinuance as an abode for mankind,
and no doctrine of that sort is taught by the phrase
they used.

On the other hand, taking the Greek word which
was used by the sacred writers when they meant to
speak of the earth, either as a planet, or as the abode
of man— ;^6(T/ioc— we find no "end" any where asserted
of it. Matt. 4 : 8, "All the kingdoms of the world."
13 : 35, "From the foundation of the world." Luke
11 : 5, "From the beginning of the world." John
17 : 5, "Before the world was." Acts 17 : 24, "God
that made the world and all things therein." Rom.
1 : 8, "Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole
world," etc. I repeat it, of the world in this sense
— xoa/io^ — no end is ever asserted or implied. There
is no such phrase as the end or completion of the
x6(T/jLo^.^ And yet it is in this sense of the term world,
that the phrase is commonly understood. A predicate

*In 2 Pet. 3 : 6 the word is applied to the antediluvian ''world,"
which it is declared perished (apoleto) in the deluge. Obviously
it was not the earth as a planet, but its inhabitants, that was
meant.

192 THE PABOUSIA.

which belongs solely to one word is without any war-
rant transferred to another of entirely different mean-
ing, simply because both are unfortunately represented
by the same English word "world," and from this un-
authorized combination, is made to teach an idea which
probably never entered the thought of any inspired
author whatever.

There is, however, a remarkable passage in 2 Peter
3 : 3-13, which is constantly referred to and relied up-
on as teaching the doctrine before us beyond all ques-
tion. "The heavens and the earth which are now, by
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire
against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly
men. — The heavens shall pass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the
earth also and the works that are therein shall be
burned up. — The heavens being on fire shall be dis-
solved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat."

In endeavoring to ascertain the meaning of this im-
portant passage, it may be remarked :

1. That we are not to interpret the language
according to the revelations of modern science. Geol-
ogy and Astronomy have taught us many facts as to
the nature and history of our globe and of the material
universe, of which the ancients were wholly ignorant.
They supposed the earth to be a vast plain resting
upon immovable foundations, (2 Sam. 22 : 16 ; Job 38 :
4 ; Ps. 101 : 5 ; Prov. 8 : 29 ; Isa. 24 : 18 ; 40 : 21 ; 51 :
13; Jer. 31 : 37 ; Mic. 6 : 2); the heavens a "firm-
ament " or solid expanse, to which the sun, moon, and
stars were fastened as luminous disks, and from which

THE END OF THE WOBLJ). 193

they might be detached and fall to the ground like
the leaves of autumn. Gen. 1: 7, 17; Isa. 42 : 5 ;
Job 37 : 18 ; Rev. 6 : 13, 14. The idea that these were
worlds or heavenly bodies, in our sense of these terms,
had then probably never entered the mind of any man
except, possibly, some speculating student of the stars.
Hence, I cannot accept the translation given by Alford
of the word "elements," as "the heavenly bodies."
Peter most assuredly knew nothing of any such bodies,
and could not have meant to express such an idea.

2. The passage cannot mean that the material
universe, or our earth and its skies, is to be annihi-
lated. For the "new heavens and the new earth,"
which the apostle says were promised to succeed, are
certainly the same material world as the present.
That promise is in Isa. 65 : 17-25, which upon any
reasonable interpretation is clearly something that is
to be realized on this existing earth. " It could not
be demonstrated from this phrase (burnt up)" says Mr.
Barnes, " that the world would be annihilated by fire ;
it could be proved only that it will undergo important
changes. So far as the action of fire is concerned,
the form of the earth may pass away, and its aspect
be changed ; but unless the direct power which created
it interposes to annihilate it, the matter which now
composes it will still be in existence. Whether it is
God's purpose to annihilate any portion of the matter
he has made, does not appear from his word." *

It is sometimes alleged that stars have disappeared
from the visible heavens,-some apparently in a blaze ;

"Notes, 2 Pet. 3:10.

194 THE PABOUSIA.

as if on fire, from which it is inferred that the same
thing may not improbably happen to our sun and his
attending planets. To which I reply ; granting the
phenomena as described, they prove nothing. Recent
astronomy reveals vast numbers of periodic stars ; — i.
e., those revolving about each other, or about a com-
mon center, and undergoing in consequence incessant
variations in brightness, some even at times becoming
and remaining long invisible. These alternations, in
some instances of immense periods so that there is a to-
tal disappearance for many centuries even, are no proof
of their passing out of existence. And as to the appear-
ance of blazing, as if on fire, we need but to look at
our own sun, which for unknown ages has literally
been thus on fire, glowing in the flames of incandes-
cent hydrogen, yet it is not consumed and gives no
indication that it ever will be.'^

3. As little, I think, does the passage mean that
this world as an abode for man, in the natural order
of things, is to be destroyed. In this sense of the
term world, — xoa/w::, — as already remarked, the
Scriptures never speak of an " end " of it.

We should not forget that both the author of this

* Humboldt protests against the hypothesis of destruction, —
of the actual combustion of the stars which have disappeared.
"That which we see no more," he says, ''has not necessarily
ceased to exist. — The eternal play of apparent creation and
apparent destruction does not prove the annihilation of matter;
it is a pure transition towards new forms, determined by the
action of new forces. Some stars which have become obscure
may again suddenly become luminous by the renewal of the
same conditions which, in the first instance, developed the
light." The Heavens, p. 367.

r J THE END OF THE WOULD. 195

epistle and those to whom it was addressed were Jews^
whose conceptions of the earth and its history were
derived from the Old Testament Scriptures. To the
Jews, this was the one Book, — we might almost say the
onli/ book of instruction on all subjects whatever. It
was their manual, not only of theology and morals, but
of history and science and law and poetry. They read
and taught it to their children (2 Tim. 3 : 14, 15);
they heard it read in the synagogues every Sabbath
day. Luke 4 : 16 ; Acts 13 : 27 ; 2 Cor. 3 : 15. Its
language, its figures of speech, its way of conceiving
and representing things, were imbibed with their
mother's milk, and were as familiar as their own ver-
nacular speech. Of the speculations of oriental or
Grecian philosophy few knew any thing whatever.
Of course, I do not mean to say that Inspiration might
not impart to a Jew new truths, but even these he
would express necessarily in modes and terms with
which the nation was familiar, and without which he
could not be understood. It seems to me self-evident,
then, that the proper clew to the meaning of Peter's
language is to be found in the Old Testament, and in
what we know to have been the prevailing opinions of
the Jews in that age.

Turning then to the older Scriptures, we find their
language in respect to the duration and destiny of the
earth, directly opposite to the assumed meaning of this
passage. Ps. 78 : 69. " He built his sanctuary like
high places, like the earth which he hath established
for ever." Ps. 93 : 1. " The world also is established
that it cannot be moved." Ps. 104 : 5. " Who laid

196 THE PAROUSIA.

the foundation of the earth, that it should not be
removed for ever." Ps. 48 : 6. " He hath established
them — for ever and ever ; he hath made a decree which
shall not pass." Eccl. 1 ; 4. " One generation passeth
away and another generation cometh, but the earth
abideth for ever." Even in those places where the
comparative transitoriness of the universe is used to
highten by contrast the eternity and immutability of
God, the implication is the same. Ps. 102 : 26, 27.
" They — the earth and the heavens, — shall perish, but
thou shalt endure ; yea all of them shall wax old like
a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them and
they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy
years shall have no end." The meaning is that God's
eternity shall exceed the most eternal things. So with
the words of Christ, Matt. 24: 35. "Heaven and
earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass
away." It is duration intensified by outrunning
the ideal types of unchangeableness. It would be a
sorry anti-climax to ascribe to the divine existence and
promises a duration only exceeding what was confessed-
ly transient.

We have a remarkable confirmation of this view of
the Old Testament teachings in the writings of Philo.
He was a learned Jewish philosopher of Alexandria,
of the priestly family of Aaron, born a few years
before Christ. His writings exercised a wide influence
over the opinions of the Jews. One of his works is
an elaborate treatise on " The Incorruptibility of the
World," by which he means the perpetuity of " the
heaven and the earth and all that is therein." We

THE END OF THE WORLD. 197

cannot here follow his peculiar course of reasoning,
which he professes to base upon the Scriptures,
especially Genesis I, but his conclusion is pertinent
to our topic.

" Therefore we are naturally led to conclude that
the whole earth will not be dissolved by water, which
its bosoms contain ; nor again will fire be extinguished
by the air, nor again the air be burnt up and con-
sumed by fire, since the divine law has placed it as a
boundary to keep all these elements distinct from one
another."

He represents Moses as saying in Genesis that the
world was created indestructible ; that days and
nights, and seasons and years, and the sun and moon
which measure time, ^" having received an immortal
portion in common with the whole heaven, continue
forever indestructible."

He argues that if the world is to be destroyed, it
must be by some other efficient cause, or by God.
Not the former, for there is nothing which the world
does not surround and contain. " On the other hand,
to say that it is destroj^ed by God is the most impious
of all possible assertions ; for God is the cause not of
disorder and irregularity and destruction, but of order,
and beautiful regularity, and life, and of every good
thing, as is confessed by all those whose opinions are
based on truth." Sect. 16.

We may assert then with confidence, that the very
impressive language of Peter could not have been taken
by a Jew of that day as .teaching the end of this
material world. It would be an idea of which he had

198 THE PAROUSIA.

never heard, one whicli he would think contradicted
the Scriptures themselves, and which in the estimation
of the most learned men of the nation was absolutely
" impious."

And yet the same phraseology, understood in another
sense, was perfectly familiar. Take, for instance, the
prophecy by Isaiah of the overthrow of Idumea for
her enmity to God's people. Its resemblance to that
used by Peter will appear the closer if we suppose, as
is altogether probable, that he and his brethren read
from the Septuagint version. I give the two, literally
translated, side by side.

ISAIAH34:4, 9, 10.

AH the powers of the heavens
shaU be melted, and the heaven
shaU be roHed wp like a scroll.—
And her land shall be on fire like
pitch, night and day, and shall
not be extinguished for ever.

2 1'ETER3: 10,12.

The heavens shall pass away
with a great noise, the elements
being biirned shall be dissolved. —
The heavens being on fire shall be
dissolved and the elements being
burned shall melt, and the earth
and the works in it shall be burned
up.

So, elsewhere, whenever the Lord appears to chas-
tise wicked men and nations, his presence and the
effects of it are set forth in similar language. Ps. 46 :
6. "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are
dissolved ; I bear up the pillars of it." Nahum 1 : 6.
" The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the
storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. The
mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and
the earth is burned at his presence, yea the world and
they that dwell therein." Isa. 24 : 19. " The earth
is utterly broken down ; the earth is clean dissolved ;
the earth is moved exceedingly." All this language,
read habitually in private and in the synagogues,
taught the Jews the terrors of God's judgments upon

THE END OF THE WOBLB, 199

wicked nations, but never for a moment the literal
end of the world. Could Peter, without a word of
explanation, have used it in a different sense ?

4. I understand, then, his reference to have been to
the well known Jewish idea of ''Hhe aion that now is;"
in other words, to the system of the Mosaic dispensa-
tion as already explained. Let the following particulars
be noted.

(1). That aion, or world, was to pass away. It
was to be destroyed totally and forever. So with " the
hieavens and the earth " in Peter. Prof. Stuart well
objects to the common idea of a reconstructed earth,
to arise from the ruins of the old one after it shall
have been dissolved and purified by fire. " This new
heaven and new earth are not to be constructed by
fitting up and vamping anew the old and worn out
systems. The first heavens and earth pass away.'*'*
Com. Apoc. 21 : 1.

(2). That aion was to perish with a great noise.
There was to be the " great sound of a trumpet," and
the wail of ''all the tribes of the earth," the "falling
of the stars from heaven," and the shaking of " the
powers of the heavens." Matt, 24: 29-31. There
was in literal verity the terrible crash of a burning
city, the overthrow of palaces and temples and walls,
the despairing cries of the dying, and the triumphant
shouts of the victors. Taken both figuratively and
literally, no single word could better describe the over-
throw of the Jewish temple, city, and nation, with all
their venerated and once divine institutions than that
used by Peter — ^oc^r^dov.

200 THE PAROUSIA.

(3). That aion was to expire amid the same sort of
physical phenomena described by Peter, — the wonders
in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood
and fire, and vapor of smoke, the extinguished sun and
moon, etc. (Acts 2 : 19, 20). Who can doubt that
all these have the same signification in both cases ?
What clearer demonstration, therefore, that the events
of which these are the concomitants are the same ?

(4). For the time being, that aion was ''^reserved
unto jirey The word translated reserved is, literally,
treasured up^ something kept for a certain time or
use. Now, this was precisely what John was commis-
sioned to preach, — that the old dispensation was just
going to give place to the new kingdom, and the old
fruitless trees, the worthless chaff of the old threshing
floor, were then to be given to the fire. The parable
of the tares shows the field, with its mixed crop of
good and bad, spared for a little while unto the harvest
at the " end " of " this aion," when the tares shall be
gathered and burned in the fire. Matt. 13 : 40. The
drag-net shows the wicked at "the end of this age"
cast into the furnace of fire. In both of the particulars
-that the end of each world was to be "fire," and that
each for a brief space longer was treasured or kept for
that destination,-the parallel between the two is per-
fect.

(5). Both the " aion" that now is and the " end of
this world " should be at the Parousia of Christ.
Matt. 24 : 3. 2 Pet. 3 : 4. That " the day of the
Lord," in verse 10, was the thing which the scoffers
derided when they asked where was the promise of
his Parousia, is too obvious to need proof.

THE END OF THE WORLD. 201

(6). They were both, therefore, in like manner
near, and objects for watching and expectation. It
was because it had not already come, Peter says, that
the scoffers derided the expectation of it. Nevertheless,
he says, it will surely come, and bids his readers to be
looking for and hastening it. As heretofore remarked,
this implies the near approach of the event, for it is
impossible to be watching and waiting for what is
thousands of years distant.

(7). The dissolving of '''the elements ^^ mentioned
by Peter points to the same event as the end of the
aion. The original word-^ro;;^£?'«-occurs elsewhere in
the New Testament five times, and in all with nearly
the same meaning. Two of them are in Gal. 4 : 3 and
9. " We, when we were children, were in bondage
under the elements of the world." " How turn ye
again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye
desire again to be in bondage ?" This clearly refers
to the imperfect rites and doctrines of the Jewish law.
Alford saj'S, "All the enactments peculiar to the law,
some of which are expressly named, verse 10." The
next two instances are in Col. 2 : 8, 20. "Beware,
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments
of the world, and not after Christ." "If ye be dead
with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why as
though living in the world are ye subject to ordi-
nances," etc, "Ritualistic observances," says Alford.
The only remaining instance is Heb. 5 : 12, "Ye
have need that one teach you again which be the first
principles of the oracles of God." Here the reference
10

202 THE PAROUSIA.

is not to the Mosaic law, but to the elementary truths
of Christianity, though the same idea of what is rudi-
mentary and imperfect is still implied. Now Peter
says that in the Parousia, or day of the Lord, the ele-
ments shall be dissolved. What can this be but that
the imperfect ritual and doctrinal system of Judaism,
to which the early Hebrew converts were once in
bondage and were ever trying to go back, should be
wholly abolished ? They were the chaff and stubble
of the old system, which should be burned up at the
introduction of the new and higher kingdom of Christ.

(8). TJie events attending the end of the aion
seem to be described by the Apocalyptist in Rev. 6 :
12-17, in language almost identical with that of Peter.
" Lo there was a great earthquake, and the sun became
black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as
blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even
as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is
shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed
as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every moun-
tain and island were removed out of their places." I
cannot doubt that this refers to the same subject, — the
distresses that were to come upon Jerusalem and Pal-
estine before and at the destruction of the city; but
whether this interpretation be accepted or not is not
important here. That the language does not describe
the end of the world is clear from the fact that a long
series of events in human history is represented as
following after it.

I do not, then, find the doctrine of the end of the
world, either as a planet or as the scene of human life

THE END OF THE WORLD. 203

and probation, taught in the Scriptures. As read
from the standpoint of the sacred writers and of
the times in which they lived, and with conceptions of
the divine arrangements such as they had been taught,
we find only intimations of moral revolutions which
were to introduce the new kingdom of Christ, attended,
indeed, with unparalleled sufferings on the part of the
guilty nation who refused to receive him as their King,
but not implying changes in the structure of the
physical universe, or any end, however remote, of the
duration of a kingdom inaugurated in a manner so
imposing.

And with these conclusions from Scripture harmon-
ize, we believe, both reason and science. Often has
the question thrust itself upon our thought, why should
this world cease ? It is a theater which affords to the
higher orders of intelligence the grandest displays of
the divine wisdom and goodness. " We are made a
spectacle to the world [the universe] — to angels and
to men." " Into these things the angels desire to
look." Neither the efficacy nor the glory of the cross
of Jesus will ever cease. The sacrifice for sin here
offered was " offered forever." Heb. 10 : 12. The
priesthood he assumed was an unchangeable one. The
divine Comforter who is given to renew and sanctify
souls is to abide with us for ever. John 14 : 16. If
the existence of man, as shown by his creation, was
"good" (Gen. 1 : 31,) — a work over which "the morn-
ing stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted
for joy "(Job 38 : 7) — ; if there is joy in the presence
of the angels over one sinner that repenteth ; if it be

204 THE PABOUSIA.

a source of satisfaction to the heart of the Saviour to
see of the travail of his soul, and to bring many sons
unto glory ; why should that which so fills the universe
and its Creator with joy ever be brought to an end ?
Let it have continued six thousand years, or a million
times six thousand, is there any conceivable reason
why it should not be continued still as long again ?
If the preceding period brought joy and glory to God,
will not the succeeding one ? Will the Creator ever
be weary of creating souls ? Will the Spirit ever tire
of new-creating? Will heaven be too full of the
redeemed ? Will the universe be too full of happiness ?
Rather, let us enlarge our conceptions of the scale of
Jehovah's working, and of the magnitude of the king-
dom which he has established in his Son ; and let our
raptured ascription be " unto Him that is able to do
abundantly above all that we ask or think, according
to the power which worketh in us, — unto Him be
glory in the church by Christ Jesus through all gen-
erations of the aion of the aions.^^ Eph. 1 : 20, 21.

Nor do I know any thing in science opposed to this
conclusion. It is often argued, indeed, that the future
dissolution of the earth by fire is made probable by
the fact that it was once, in a by-gone geologic age, a
molten mass, and that the numerous volcanoes still
evince the existence of liquid fires within it. But
God's works are progressive, and there is no reason to
suppose that the processes by which the earth was
brought from primeval chaos to be a mundus, — a
world of order and beauty for the abode of man, are
to be repeated, in this later stage of its existence.

THE END OF THE WORLD. . 205

Doubtless the earth contains within itself forces
adequate to its own dissolution, if such were the order
of nature or of God. But so might the autumn, if
God willed it, arrest its fruit-maturing work and go to
blossoming again. So might a man, by miracle, enter
the second time into his mother's womb and be born.
But because nature has had her births is she never to
be sure of her maturity ? Is it her law to go back-
ward ? Is there to be a reversed Genesis written at
the close of the Revelation?

But our business, at present, is theology not natural
science. It is to ask what is taught by the Bible, not
by astronomy. Even if it shall ultimately be made
probable, as a deduction of the nebular hypothesis,
that the earth, by the process of cooling, will cease to
be habitable, as the moon is supposed to be already, it
would prove nothing to the purpose. Of such a theory
the sacred writers could have known nothing, and
therefore asserted nothing. That result, if conceded,
must be at such a distance as to be practically infinite.
There is no evidence that since man was placed on
the earth the temperature of this planet has dimin-
ished by a single degree. Doubtless there was a time
when a tropical climate reached far towards the poles ;
so there was a period when the polar ices extended
near to the tropics. Astronomical cycles are, in such
an inquiry as this, equivalent to eternities. Concede
in regard to them whatever you will, — whatever in
the progress of science may be ultimately demonstra-
ted, it will still remain true that the Bible affirms
nothing concerning them, and that, if not in the

206 THE PAROUSIA.

strictest mathematical sense, yet in the spiritual and
practical one, the earth, this home of man, the theater
of redemption and salvation, "abideth for ever," and
that of the kingdom of the Messiah there shall be " no
end."

CHAPTER X.

THE NEW JERUSALEM.

The revelation which the seer on Patmos was com-
missioned to make to his brethren of the seven
churches, to show unto them " things which must
shortly come to pass," closes with the vision of the
New Jerusalem. Our survey of the work of Christ
as King would not be complete without a brief inquiry
as to the import of this city, and its relations to his
kingdom.

That the New Jerusalem is a symbolic representa-
tion of the Christian church, or the spiritual kingdom
of the Messiah, in some aspect of it, is universally
believed. But when we ask in what aspect, and in
what supposed period of it, we find a great variet}^ of
opinions. Some regard it as a symbol of the church
in the millennium, or latter-day glory. Some, among
whom is Alford, assign it to the period after the Gen-
eral Judgment, as " descriptive of the consummation
of the triumph and bliss of Christ's people with him
in the eternal kingdom of God. This eternal king-
dom is situated on the purified and renewed earth,
become the blessed habitation of God with his glori-
fied people."' Some suppose it to be a representation
of heaven.

It seems to me that if we bear in mind the objects

207

208 THE PAROUSIA.

for which, and the circumstaDces in which, this book
was written, together with certain indications which
are given in the description itself, we shall find a clew
to its import which we may accept with some firm
confidence that it is the ct^rrect one. Let us remem-
ber that at that date the church, or visible Christian-
ity, was relatively small and feeble. The eighteen
centuries of history which have familiarized it to us
in its vast extent and power had not yet existed. It
was, at that moment, under the ban of the Empire
which ruled the world. Its adherents were few and
poor and weak. It was a question whether Christian-
ity itself was not on the point of extinguishment, as
a light divinely kindled, indeed, but unable to sur-
vive in the murky atmosphere and under the fierce
tempests of a hostile world. We can readily imagine
the misgivings which might have crept over the minds
of the suffering saints as they contemplated these
things,-the secret question which would steal into their
thoughts whether they were not throwing themselves
away ; whether it would not turn out that they were
following a delusion which would soon come to nought ;
and whether, therefore, it would not be wiser for them
to make peace with their persecutors, submit them-
selves to the authority of the Emperor, and be restored
to ease and comfort. In such circumstances, what
could be more potent to reassure their faith than the
lifting by a divine hand of the curtain of the future,
and showing them in a grand scenic picture what the
church of Grod was to be when seen as a whole^ as out-
lined in the plan and purpose of its Lord. So Moses,

THE NEW JERUSALEM. 209

before his death, haying forfeited his right to enter
Canaan, was yet, in order to strengthen his faith and
confirm his joy in the fulfillment of the promise to his
people, permitted to ascend the lofty mountain-top and
look off thence upon the goodly land in its length
and breadth, that he might for once feast his eye with
the anticipated beauty and glory of that which had so
long filled his thoughts, and been the goal of all his
desires.

If this view of the purport of this vision be correct,
it will suggest to us the error of making the heavenly
city symbolic of auT/ particular period in the history
of the church. I would rather see in it that church
as a whole ; its foundations already laid in the " twelve
apostles of the Lamb," and its completion to be
reached only in the grand consummation of the future.
It does seem to me, however, that it is the church on
earth that is meant, and not in the heavenly world.

1. This appears to be required by the designations
of time which are expresslj" given in connection with
it. Not to insist upon the general statement in the
title of the book, that it referred to things which
" must shortly come to pass," we find the same decla-
ration repeated immediately after the description of
the city, and with manifest reference to it. " And he
said unto me, these sayings are faithful, and true, and
the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to
shew unto his servants the things which must shortly
— ^v rdyBt — be done." Ch. 22 : 6. I cannot think
that this phrase can justly be applied to what should
be thousands of years distant. If language was

210 THE PABOUSIA.

designed to communicate an intelligible idea, it must,
if not otherwise qualified, be that idea which its terms
naturally signify, and these certainly imply that the ful-
fillment, at least in its beginning, was then near at hand.
2. The language under which it is described shows
its correspondence with prophecies which we know
related to Christianity as a whole, or the coming king-
dom of the Messiah. The new heavens and the new
earth must be the same that were predicted by Isaiah
(ch. 65 : 17 ; 6Q : 22), which most certainly had that
reference. Says Mr. Barnes, " There can be no doubt,
I think, that this refers to the times of the Messiah. —
It is adapted, not only to comfort the ancient afflicted
people of God, but it contains most important and
cheering truth in regard to the final prevalence of true
religion, and the state of the world when the gospel
shall every where prevail." The city itself is identical
with the temple and city seen by Ezekiel, as is appar-
ent, not only from the general cast of it, but from the
numerous minute resemblances in the two descrip-
tions. Compare its quadrilateral shape ; the three gates
on each side bearing the names of the tribes of Israel ;
the river flowing out of the sanctuary ; the vital effi-
cacy of its waters ; the trees growing on either side ;
their monthly yield of fruit ; their unfading leaves,
with life giving qualities ; the name of the city,
denoting the dwelling place of Jehovah,^ etc. " All,"

^For the ever open gates, tlie bringing in of the wealth and
glory of the Gentile nations and kings, the absence of sun and
moon, their places being supplied by the Lord himself, etc.,
the pattern seems to be Isa. 60: 11-19, — one of the most
remarkable of the prophecies relating to the Messianic times.

THE NEW JEB U SALEM. 211

says Prof. Cowles of the former, " every several thing,
provides for the great central fact, and adjusts itself
around that living truth — Jehovah dwelling forever,
and forever nianifesting himself among his chosen;
he their God, and tliey his people. Prophetically, it
looks doivn the Christian age to its great central truth,
— the Lord by his divine Spirit making his abode
through all ages in the hearts of his children."

So, also, the promises given to the happy inmates of
the city, — tears wiped away (compare Isa. 25 : 8); no
more death (ibid.); no more sorrow nor crying (Isa.
65 : 19); all things made new ; (Isa. 65 : 17). Surely,
it ought not to be doubted that this later prophecy,
evidently so minutely modeled after the earlier one,
meant the same thing. It was not a servile imitation,
but an embellished and emphasized repetition of it,
which every reader familiar with the inspired language
would recognize at once, and accept as a renewal and
confirmation of the blessed assurances given therein.

3. The relations of this city to the rest of the
world imply its co-existence with the present order of
things. The nations^ and their kings still remain.
Ch. 21 : 24, 26 ; 22 : 2. It may be questioned what is
the precise meaning of the " nations " here. The
original — r« i(%r^ — is the well known Jewish phrase
denoting the Gentiles. When standing without qual-
ification, it almost always has that meaning. For
example, see Acts 15 : 3, 7, 12, 14, 17, 19, 23. Many
of the ablest expositors (Ewald, deWette, Bleek,

■■The words ''of tlie saved," in our English version, are
unwarranted.

212 THE PAROUSIA.

etc.) 9 so understand it in this place. The words "in
the light " of it are, properly, " through its light " —
did Tou (pcoTo^ — as denoting the instrument or means
by which they are enabled to walk. Thus interpreted,
the sentiment is the same as in Isa. 2:2; 60 : 3 ; viz.
that the church of God should be an instructor of the
Gentile nations in the truths of religion. Nor is the
idea essentially different if the phrase be not confined
to the Gentiles, but made of general application.
Alford translates the passage " And the nations shall
walk by means of the light of it." The same thing
is implied in the leaves of the tree of life being for
the healing of the nations. What nations remain to
be healed in heaven, or after the day of judgment?
The ever open gates must denote the Ireeness of sal-
vation to all who will accept the offers borne to them
by the church. Isa. 60 : 9. The gifts brought by
kings and by the nations must denote the glad homage
which the world, subjected to Christ, shall offer to his
cause and kingdom, which is so vividly portrayed by
Isaiah. Ch. 60 : 3-16.

"See barbarous nations at thy gates attend, .

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend ;

See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,

And heaped with products of Sabaean springs !

For thee Idumea's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.

See Heaven his sparkling portals wide display

And break upon thee in a flood of day !"

All this varied imagery fitly describes the perpetual
office of the church to be a herald of salvation to the
world (ch. 22 : 7), and to receive from it in return

THE NEW JER U SALEM. 213

the grateful homage due to it and to the Lord who
dwells within it.

4. It is declared that without the city are " dogs,
and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and
idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."
This is usually understood of the fact that the wicked
are confined in the place of punishment. It may be
that such Avas the intended meaning, but it seems
more natural to refer it to their exclusion from the
church here on earth, a meaning parallel with that of
Gal. 5: 19-21. The word "without" apparently
denotes the territory round about the city, and the
persons named represent, as Stuart remarks, ''the lead-
ing characteristics of the heathen persecutors." The
figure suggests the condition of the church, under the
indwelling protection of the Lord, safe within its angel-
guarded walls, while its malignant and unclean foes
are driven away into the outlying regions of sin and
death.

But while the immediate design in the description
of the New Jerusalem is to show forth the glory and
felicity of the church of God on earth, when viewed
as a whole, there seems also to be a tacit reference to
the further glory of its eternal reward in heaven.
For the blessed kingdom of Christ includes both
worlds, the earthly as the vestibule and pledge of the
heavenly. The earthly would not be complete with-
out the heavenly. " If in this life only we have hope
in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." It is
the church in its perfected holiness and crowned with
the hope of heavenly immortality that constitutes the

214 THE PAR 0 USIA.

city of God the object of his delight, and the temple
in which he will dwell, whose name is " the Lord is
there."

Thus viewed, the inspired vision of the New Jerusa-
lem stands before his people in all ages as their encour-
agement to faith and service. It bids them never be
faint-hearted ; never to be weary either in suffering or
doing. As the builder with brick or stone needs to
look often at the plan of the edifice upon which he
labors, that he may catch the inspiration of its sym-
metry and beauty, so may the Christian worker here
behold the end to which all his toil and pains are
directed. Christ is building his church, the capital of
his kingdom. However slow the progress, whatever
enmities or obstacles may hinder, it is ever going for-
ward, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against
it. Blessed are all they who work with their Lord in
this undertaking. Blessed are they who see its glories
by faith, and desire to share them. Thrice blessed
they who are washing their robes, that they may have
right to the tree of life and may enter in through the
gates into the city.

PART III.

CHRIST AS LIFE-GIVER

The reign of Christ as King is over a realm deliv-
ered from death. The one great fact in which his
whole redemptive work is founded is, that man is a
fallen being. Death hath passed apon all men, for
that all have sinned. Rom. 5 : 12. It is not alone
that they are guilty because of their transgression of
God's law ; it is not alone that they have forfeited his
favor, and come under condemnation. The race has
lost by sin the power of self recovery. The vital
impulse to holy feeling, purpose, and action has been
destroyed, and unless replaced by a divine power not
inferior to that of the first creation, cannot be kind-
led again. Hence the oft repeated Scripture testimony
that men, in their fallen state, are dead^ — "dead in
trespasses and sins." Rom. 6 : 2. Eph. 2 : 1, 5. Col.
2:13.

It was, then, one of the chief functions of the glo-
rified and reigning Redeemer to give life to a world
lying in death. "I am come," said he, "that they
might have life." John 10: 10. He is declared

215

216 THE PABOUSIA.

emphatically to be "the Life," (John 1 : 4) i. e., having
in himself the concrete office and power to impart it
to men. " As the Father hath life in himself, so hath
he given to the Son to have life in himself " (John
6 ; 26), i. e., to be a new source of life to all who
should receive him. And in this capacity, under
numerous suggestive figures, he offers himself to man-
kind. " I am the bread of life." John 6 : 48. '' I
will give my flesh for the life of the world." John 6 :
51. " The water that I shall give him shall be in him
a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
John 4 : 14. " As the Father raiseth up the dead and
quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom
he will." John 5 : 21, etc.

It is in this office of Life-Giver that Christ styles
himself the Wvaozaac^^ — the Resurrection. That
office must be co-extensive with the ruin which had been
wrought by sin, and this included the bodies as well
as souls of men. Man's whole nature, the corporeal
as well as spiritual, had fallen under the power of
death, and must therefore be reached by the new life
which Christ came to impart. Hence that sublime
declaration addressed to the weeping sisters of Beth-
any, and through them to all the bereaved in all time ;
" I am the Resurrection and the Life ; he that believ-
eth in me even though he have died (dnod^dvr^ — past),
shall live, and he that is alive (in the flesh) and believe th
in me shall never die." John 11 : 25, 26.

CHAPTER I.

THE ANASTASIS.

It is not within the design of this work to dwell
upon the doctrine of regeneration. It is one of the
usual topics of religious truth, which are familiar to
all. I pass this by, then, and proceed at once to the
other great work of Christ as Life-giver, viz. the Res-
urrection.

The word itself — dudcFzaaii:, standing again — sug-
gests the primary idea involved in it. The act of
dying nearly always occurs in a recumbent posture ;
man lies down in death. To stand up again, therefore,
would naturally express the idea of a restoration to
life, a second life occurring after death.

Assuming now the fact of such a second life, and
waiving for the present the question of the time when
it commences, our first inquiry will be as to the nature
of that life. What will it be? — or in other words,
what will live again F

1. It will be the spirit of man, his intellectual and
moral nature, that which was made in the image of
God, and by virtue of which he is enabled to have
communion with God, and become a citizen of heaven.

2. It will be, in some sense, the bodg of man.
This is one of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity.
The future existence of the soul was taught even by

217

218 THE PAROUSIA.

the heathen sages but most of them knew nothing of
the resurrection of the body/'^ As already remarked,
the salvation provided for man by Christ extends to
all the elements of his being. The invisible, post-
mortal world is not like that described by the poets, a
realm of umbrce — pale, passionless ghosts, but one in
which man's whole nature has place, with room for all
its purified capacities and activities to expatiate in and
to grow forever.

But a deeper and more important question here
arises, viz : What is the body ?

Of course, we recognize under this term that natu-
ral structure of bones and flesh and blood, which is
common to man with the brute creation. It is a mass
of solids and fluids, with their chemical properties, de-
rived originally from the earth and destined to return
to it. This, in ordinary speech, is what we mean by
the body. But is this all ? A fruit is, in common
acceptation, the mass of pulpy or farinaceous material
gathered, commonly, around the germ^ to serve as tem-
porary food for the young plant that is to spring from
that germ. In more exact speech, the germ alone is
the real fruit ; the rest is matter auxiliary to it, de-
signed to meet its wants in the initial stage of its ex-
istence, and after that, if not thus absorbed, to decay
and cease to be. Is there, then, within this natural
body, a germ, or elementar}^ principle, not identical
with a vegetable seed but analogous to it, which, in

* Perhaps the Egyptians should be excepted, whose practice
of embalming the dead seems to point to the hope of another
life.

THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE. 219

strictness of speech is the real body, and to which this
mass of earthly materials sustains a temporary rela-
tion, subservient to present uses, but destined when
those uses are completed to drop into dissolution and
be, in this form, no longer existent ?

This question, it will be perceived, is one of faet, —
present fact. It does not now look forward to the dis-
tant future to inquire what will be then, but it asks
what is true of the body of man now, in its present
earthly life. Such a question belongs, obviously, in
the first place, to science — that department which we
call biology ; and in the second place to revelation, so
far as the latter has spoken in regard to it.

SECTION I.
THE TESTEMONY OF SCIEKCE.

On this question, then, we interrogate science, in
the persons of several of its most distinguished inter-
pretators.

Dr. Mark Hopkins, than whom we have no more
reliable authority, at least in this country, in describ-
ing the present physical constitution of man, says
(Outline Study of Man, pp. 251, 2) :—

" The body, then, will not consist merely of the mat-
ter of which it may be composed at any given moment,
and which is constantly changing, but of that in con-
nection with the or ganific power that has been in it from
the first, has wrought its changes, has caused it to be
such a body rather than another, and given it its iden-
tity, so that we say we have the same body while not a
particle of the same matter remains. How far this

220 THE PABOUSIA.

individualized force may be preserved in its identity
vi^henitis separated from the matter of the hody^ so that
it may again re-appear^ perhaps, according to the doc-
trine of the correlation of forces, under some other
form, it is not for us to say. Certainly, it is not the
least marvelous feature of our present state that there
are types that are constantly preserved, while yet hav-
ing such a wonderful variety under them. And as
the tj^pes are preserved, so there is no absurdity in
supposing that, in some way unknown to us, each indi-
vidual force^ that which is really the body^ may be pre-
served. The preservation of this type by generation
after its kind seems natural because we are accus-
tomed to it, but is really as mysterious as would be the
continuity of the individual force. At any rate, we
have here a separate, necessitated form of movement,
that builds up and maintains organization, and we call
the force thus building, together with the resulting
organization, the Body."

We gather from this language the following propo-
sitions :

1. The body does not consist of matter only.

2. It has in it from its first existence an organific
force.

3. In this force consists the bodily identity.

4. It is this which builds up and maintains the
material organization.

5. This force, and the organization it builds up,
together constitute the body.

6. This organific force may exist when separated
from the matter of the body ; at least, there is no
absurdity in supposing it.

THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE. 221

The venerable ex-President does not go further in
describing this "organific force." He does not say
what it is, nor does he give it a name. His opinion
is valuable in that it substantiates the fact of its exist-
ence, while we look elsewhere for fuller information
as to its nature and qualities.

President Noah Porter, of Yale College, is more spe-
cific. Recognizing the three-fold nature of man as
consisting of body, soul, and spirit — (Tco/ia, (puyfj.,
Tn^eufia—he attributes the organific force to the psyche,
or soul. "The term soul," he says, "originally signi-
fied the principle of life or motion in a material organ-
ism. It was pre-eminently appropriated to the vital
principle or force which animates the animal body,
whether in man or the lower animals. Traces of this
signification may be distinctly discovered in the three-
fold division of body, soul, and spirit, in which the
soul occupies the place between the corporeal or mate-
rial part, and the spiritual or noetic. This interme-
diate part was sometimes called the animal soul, and
was believed to perish with the bod3\"*

Dr. P. proceeds at length to argue that the soul
(psyche) is the elementary principle of bodily life.
"It originates the bodily organism and actuates its
functions." The argument is one of great interest,
and seems to be conclusive, but is too long to quote
here. He next answers the objections that may be
adduced, of which we need mention only one, viz :
the view thus advanced is inconsistent with the doc-
trine of the soul's immortality. When the body dies

» Human Intellect, p. 6.

222 THE PABOUSIA.

its vitality ceases : if the soul is the same thing as the
vital force, it must cease likewise. Dr. P. answers this
objection thus :

"That the soul begins to exist as a vital force, does
not require that it should always exist as such a force,
or in connection with a material body. Should it re-
quire another such body, or medium of activity, it may
have the power to create it for itself^ as it has formed
the one which it first inhabited ; or it may already have
formed it in the germ^ and hold it ready for occupation
and use as soon as it sloughs off the one which connects
it with the earth. These are possibilities, it is true,
but they are sanctioned by sufficient evidence to set
aside the objection which we are considering. They
permit the only theory of the souVs continued existence
in another state which is consistent with the facts of
our present being.'' p. 39.

This elaborate work of the learned President is now
the text book of ps3^chical science in our highest
educational institutions, and may be accepted as un-
questionable authority. From the language above
cited we may deduce several more propositions, both
confirmatory of and additional to those before stated,
viz.:

7. The organific force of the body is the soul
(psyche).

8. The soul may have the power to create for itself,
when necessary, another body than the material one,
as a medium of its activity.

9. It may have already formed such another body,
in the germ, and may be holding it ready for occupa-
tion and use as soon as it slouarhs off the material bodv.

THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE. 223

10. These two possibilities are the only ones on
which the soul's immortality can be based, consistently
with the facts of our present being.

Whether the soul exerts its organific force in form-
ing and molding the body directly, or through the
medium of this other body, Dr. P. does not say. Nor,
assuming that such second body already formed and
held ready for future occupation is a fact, does he give
us his ideas as to its nature or qualities. It is however,
by the supposition, immortal. It does not die with the
animal bod}^, but is to be its vehicle and abode after
the soul by death has sloughed off the latter. It
would seem, therefore, of necessity, to be non-atomic-
i. e. not made up of atoms or particles like those
which constitute matter, but of some such nature as
the imponderable elements, light, magnetism, elec-
tricity, etc.

But these points, in regard to which President Porter
expresses no positive opinion, are definitely pronounced
upon by the latest biological science taught in Germany,
as reported by Rev. Joseph Cook. In his thirteen
lectures on Biology, he describes the discoveries which
have recently been made in the arcana of life with the
aid of the microscope, abundantly sustaining the doc-
trine of Pres. P. as to the soul being the source of the
vital force. He claims also that it has been made
certain that the soul does dwell in such an ethereal,
non-atomic body as the President suggests. This fact
he states in separate propositions, among which are
the following :

" The late German philosophy holds the view that

224 THE PAROUSIA.

the soul must be conceived as a property or occupant
of a fluid similar to the ether.

" This fluid, however, does not, like the ether, con-
sist of atoms. — It is Ulrici's view that the soul is the
occupant of a non-atomic ether that fills the whole
form, and lies behind the mysterious weaving of the
tissues.

" This non-atomic fluid is absolutely continuous with
itself.

" Its chief center of force is in the brain.

" But it extends outward from that center, and per-
meates the whole atomic structure of the body.

" The soul, as an occupant of this ethereal enswath-
ement, operates in part unconsciously, and in part con-
sciously.

" It co-operates with the vital force.

" It is not identical with that force.

" It is the morphological agent which weaves all liv-
ing tiss^ies. It spins nerves. It weaves the muscles,
the tendons, the eye, the brain. It arranges each part
in harmony with all the other parts of the organism.

" So far as the ethereal enswathement of the soul is
non-atomic, it is immaterial.

" This non-atomic, ethereal enswathement of the soul
is conceivably separable from the body.

" It becomes clear, therefore, that even in that state
of existence which succeeds death, the soul may have
a spiritual body.

" The existence of that body preserves the memories
acquired during life in the flesh.

" If this ethereal, non-atomic enswathement of the

THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE, 225

soul be interpreted to mean what the Scriptures mean
by a spiritual body in distinction from a natural body,
there is entire harmony between the latest results of
science and the inspired doctrine of the resurrection."
These conclusions are not, according to Mr. Cook,
mere theories, or as President Porter terms them, pos-
sibilities, but demonstrated facts of science. "We are
following," says he, "haughty axiomatic certainty. In
clear and cool precision, science comes to the idea of
a spiritual body. We must not forget that this con-
clusion is proclaimed in the name of philosophy of the
severest sort. The verdict is scientific ; it happens,
also, to be biblical. Is it the worse for that ? * *
"In every leaf on the summer boughs there is a net-
work which may be dissolved out of the verdant por-
tion, and yet retain as a ghost the shape which it gave
the leaf from which it came. In every human form
growing as a leaf on the tree Igdrasil, we know that
network lies within network. Each web of organs,
if taken separately, would have a form like that of
man. There might be placed by itself the muscular
portion of the human form, or the osseous portion, or
the veins, or the arteries, and each would show the
human shape. If the nerves could be dissolved out
and held up here, they would be a white form coinci-
dent everywhere with the mysterious human physical
outline. But the invisible nervous force is more ethe-
real than this ghost of nerves. The fluid in which the
nervous waves occur is finer than the nervous fila-
ments. What if it could be separated from its envir-
onment and held up here ? It could not be seen ; it
11

226 THE PABO USIA .

could not be touched. The hand might be passed
through it ; the eyes of men in their present state
would detect no trace of it ; but it would be there.

"Your Ulricis, your Lotzes, your Beales, adhere un-
flinchingly to the scientific method. The self-evident
axiom that every change must have an adequate cause
requires us to hold that there exists behind the nerves
anon-atomic ethereal enswathement for the soul, which
death dissolves out from all complex contact with mere
flesh, and which death thus unfettering without dis-
embodying leaves free before God for all the devel-
opment with which God can inspire it." *

* In adducing the testimony of science to the present exis-
tence of * 'the spiritual body," it maybe thought that some re-
ference should be made to the phenomena of what is called
"spiritualism," as offering confirmatory evidence to the same
effect. Those phenomena, making large allowance for impos-
ture and illusion, I should not be disposed to deny. The testi-
mony of thousands of eye-witnesses of unimpeachable veracity
establishes beyond a doubt that there is a residuum of fact un-
der these manifestations which can be best explained by the
presence within the human body of an occult, invisible, ethe-
real force, which, in special circumstances, reveals itself to the
senses and produces abnormal and marvelous effects. If the
existence of a spiritual body, like that described by Mr. Cook,
be ascertained from independent sources, or if it be merely
assumed as a hypothesis, it will certainly harmonize with
those observed facts. But the whole subject is still so unde-
termined, and there is such a mass of deception and falsehood
connected with it, that it can as yet scarcely be referred to in
proof of anything. The most which it seems to me can be said
at present is, that'the phenomena referred to point in the same
direction with those described in the text.

THE TESTIMONY OF TEE SCBIPTURES. 227

SECTION n.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURES.

Is the fact thus affirmed by science as to the pres-
ent existence of a spiritual body within the material
body, the investiture and medium of activity of the
soul, confirmed by the teachings of the Scriptures ?

1. In favor thereof, we have, first, an express re-
cognition of the threefold nature of man, in which
that doctrine is founded. 1 Thess. 5 : 23. " I pray
God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The precise distinction between these is thus stated by
Alford : " The spirit is the highest and distinctive
part of man, the immortal and responsible soul in our
common parlance ; the soul (psyche) is the lower or
animal soul, containing the passions and desires which
we have in common with the brutes, but which in us
is ennobled and drawn up by the spirit" — pneuma.
With this most commentators substantially agree. Dr.
Hodge thinks that there are in man " only two sub-
jects, or distinct separable substances, the soul and the
body." In this, however, he stands nearly alone.
Dr. Hopkins says, " We find three departments of
force clearly distinguishable from each other, and
suppose that the apostle Paul was justified as a philos-
opher in calling them Body, Soul, and Spirit." Dr.
Candlish, in a sermon entitled " Life in a Risen Sav-
iour,'' says, "The spirit is that higher principle of
intelligence and thought peculiar to man alone in this
world, to which we now usually restrict the mind or

228 THE PAROUSIA.

soul ; the soul, or that lower principle of animal life
with its instincts, selfish and social, its power of volun-
tary motion, its strange incipient dawn of reasoning,
which common alike to man and beast is so great a
mystery in both ; and the body made to be the material
organ and instrument of either principle, the higher
or the lower — these three in one, this trinity, is our
present humanity." Quoted in Lange's Com. on 1
Thess. 5 : 23. Similar are the words of EUicott on the
same passage. He describes the psyche as " the sphere
of the will and the affections, and the true center of
the personality.''

2. Next, we have the relation between the soul and
the spirit indicated in Heb. 4 : 12. " The word of God
is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and
spirit^ and of the joints and marrow^ Not the divi-
ding or separation of the soul from the spirit, but the
piercing through of the soul and the spirit. The figure
is that of a sword so sharp and driven with so much
force as to penetrate through the bones of the limbs
into the marrow within them. So the spirit lies within
the soul, the inmost, or, what is the same thing, the
highest principle of his nature, -that which bears the
image of God and is capable of fellowship with him.

3. We have this lower or animal soul, the psyche^
giving character to persons who suffer themselves to be
actuated by it in spiritual things. 1 Cor. 2 : 14.
" The natural — Gr. psychical — man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them because they

THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 229

are spiritually discerned." Nothing can be better
than Alford's explanation of this. " The animal man,
as distinguished from the spiritual man, is he whose
governing principle and highest reference of all things
is the psyche, the animal life. In him the pneuma or
spirit, being unvivified and uninformed by the Spirit
of God, is overborne by the animal soul with its desires
and its judgments, and is in abeyance so that he may
be said to have it not." — Again, Jude 19. The mock-
ers, who walk after their own ungodly lusts, are
declared to be " sensual — Gr. psychical, — having not
the spirit — pneuma " — " We have," says Alford, " no
English word for <fio')^rx6:; ; and our biblical psychology
is by this defect, entirely at fault. The psyche is the
center of the personal being ; the " I " of each indi-
vidual. It is in each man bound to the spirit, man's
higher part, and to the body, man's lower part ; drawn
upwards by the one, downwards by the other. He
who gives himself up to the lower appetites is fleshly ;
he who by communion of his pneuma with God's Spirit
is employed in the higher aims of his being is spiritual.
He who rests mid- way, thinking only of self and self's .
interests, whether animal or intellectual, is the ipuyixcK;^
the selfish man, the man in whom the spirit is sunk
and degraded into subordination to the subordinate
fsyche^^ — The same sense is apparent in James 3 : 15,
" This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is
earthly, psychical, devilish."

4. We are now prepared to come to the considera-
tion of that important passage in which Paul discusses
directly the nature of the resurrection body. Let us

230 THE PABOUSIA,

endeavor to follow carefully his teachings, without
reference, for the present, to the time when the res-
urrection takes place.

"How and with what body are the dead raised?"
is the question which he undertakes to answer. The
severity of his language implies that the inquirer
intended it as an argument against the possibility of a
resurrection.

His first words are addressed to the tacit argument
presented by the nature of death itself. " The body "
says the doubter, " is lifeless ; it is decomposed ; its
materials are scattered to the winds. How can it live
again ?"

" A foolish objection that," says the apostle. " You
know by experience that whenever you want to secure
reproduction, you put the seed into a position where it
dies. That is, not the germ, but the outer covering, —
what in common speech we call the seed. The mere
fact, then, of such death and decomposition of this outer
fleshly nature of man is no proof that he will not live
again.

" On the contrary, when this outer fleshly covering
decomposes, then it is that the germ lying dormant
within — a germ which had been forming and maturing
during all the previous life of the plant-at once starts
forth in an independent life of its own. The germ is
not created at the time of the dying of the old seed, —
much less, is its existence delayed till years or ages
afterward. It was something already grown and
matured; it only waited for the death of the seed to
be loosed from its imprisoning envelope, and take on

THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCBIPTURES. 231

development of its own. It becomes a new body,
given by God as it pleased him, according to the law
of life which he created, when he made every thing
to bring forth after its kind.

" So, therefore, the risen body of man is not the
old one that was sown, but a new one developed out
of it by the power of Him who first gave it being.

"Do not suppose, however, because it is a new
product divinely given, that it is not properly a hody.
Even these earthly bodies of flesh are not exactly the
same ; man, beast, bird and fish, has each its own yet
they are alike flesh. So with bodies. There are
heavenly bodies, such as angels have, and earthly
bodies, as men ; the former indeed much more glori-
ous than the latter ; just as sun, moon, and stars, each
have their own separate rank in splendor.

" So also is the anastasis, — the resurrection life of
those who have died. Their new bodies are immeas-
urably more glorious than the old ones, as much more
as incorruptibility exceeds corruption, honor is better
than dishonor, power than weakness, a spiritual body
than a psychical body. Do not marvel at this phrase,
for if there is a psychical body, one which is under the
influence of animal passion, and made the servant of
selfish desire and aims, there is also a spiritual body,
one which is instinct with and subservient to the spirit.
So also it is written " The first man, Adam, was made
a living piiychey Gen. 2 ; 7. The natural life, there-
fore, derived from this first head of the race must be
a psychical one. But the second Adam, the second
head of the race, became a life-giving spirit ; so those

232 THE PAROUSIA.

who are born anew from him have a spiritual life. In
the order of nature this must come after the other.
The first or psychical man, having been made out of
the earth, was earthly ; the second or spiritual man
was from heaven. Like this earthly Parent will be
his earthly seed, and like their heavenly Parent will
be his heaven-born seed. And as we Christians have
borne the image of the earthly, having psychical bod-
ies, so we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly,
having spiritual bodies. And in regard to these I
say distinctly, brethren, flesh and blood—these material
bodies — cannot be partakers of the heavenly kingdom
of God; nor can corruption attain unto incorruption."

Two things in this wonderful passage deserve special
notice. First, the similitude of the seed-sowing. It
was previously used by our Lord himself of his own
resurrection. John 12 : 24. Now the whole signifi-
cance of this figure lies in the point that death is
necessary in order to liberate the imprisoned germ.
If there were no such germ, or if that too were dead,
there could be no new life. That germ can not spring
forth and grow until the husk, skin, and albuminous
mass inclosing it are softened and decomposed, in a
manner analogous to the death and dissolution of the
body. What is more obvious than the inference that
the germ of the resurrection body already exists in
the present body ?

The other point to be noticed is the affirmation that
there are two kinds of bodies. " If there is a psychical
body, there is also a spiritual.'''' So the best Mss.
The two are spoken of as co-existing. Both verbs are

RELATING TO REGENERATION. 233

in the present tense, as if alike asserting a present
truth. I cannot see how such a form of speech is con-
sistent with the idea that there was, at that time, no
spiritual body actually in existence, and would not be
for a period then, at least, full two thousand years
distant, and possibly much further.

SECTION ni.
THE EESUKRECTION AS RELATED TO HEGENEKATION.

We have seen it, now, established both by science
and the Scriptures that the psyche., the vital principle
of man's nature, — that which has built up and main-
tains this animal organism, has also, as if in anticipa-
tion of the dissolution of that organism, formed in the
germ another body of higher nature, ethereal and
immortal, which in the language of President Porter
" it holds ready for occupation and use as soon as it
sloughs off the one which connects it with the earth."
The question, then, naturally arises why, if man, while
still occupying the former body under the selfish
instincts and passions of the psyche^ becomes corrupt,
— having the character attributed by Paul and Jude
to the psychical man, — will he not when separated
from the animal body, and become an occupant of the
new ethereal body, be also corrupt ; and why this,
therefore, will not also become, like the other, d^ psychi-
cal body, unworthy of the appellation spiritual ?

The answer, manifestly, is because by the grace of
God, the moral nature has been spiritually renewed
in all those that believe in Christ.

234 THE PAROUSIA.

Observe the position which the elements of that
nature hold toward each other in man's uncon-
verted state. "The psyche," says Alford (Jude 19),
"is the center of the personal being ; the 'I' of each
individual. It is, in each man, bound to the spirit,
man's higher part, and to the body, man's lower part ;
drawn upwards by the one, downwards by the other.
He who gives himself up to the lower appetites is
Gapy.abc, — fleshly ; he who by communion of his pneu-
ma with God's Spirit is employed in the higher aims
of his being is 7Tveo[iaTcx6^ — spiritual. He who rests
midway, thinking only of self and self's interests,
whether animal or intellectual, is the (}>oy^ix6(;^ the sel-
fish man, the man in whom the spirit is sunk and de-
graded into subordination to the subordinate 'psyche. ^^

Now, in regeneration this perverted state of the
nature is reversed. The pneuma, or spirit, which in
the unregenerate man was dead or dormant, is quick-
ened. The word of God, sharper than any two-edged
sword, pierces through the intellectual and emotional
nature — the psyche^ — into the spirit and rouses it to
life and activity. The spirit of God touches it and
brings it into rapport— commumon— with himself. It
derives thence strength to cast off the bondage of the
psyche, and assume its proper place as the controlling
power over the man. Soul and body alike are brought
under its dominion. Henceforward the work of sanc-
tification proceeds, the lower nature becoming more
and more obedient to the higher, until the true har-
mony of man's constitution which had been destroyed

RELATING TO REGENERATION. 235

by the fall is restored, and' a divine order, peace and
purity reign throughout. *

Thus it follows that the resurrection, in the case of
the righteous, is but the consequent and completion of
regeneration. The ethereal, non-atomic body, being
now the abode of a psyche which has been subordi-
nated to the pneuma., becomes itself the suitable abode
and instrument of the regenerate nature and is hence-
forth, in the strictest sense, a spiritual body. Says
Prof. Reuss, "Paul more frequently places the resur-
rection in close and direct relation with the mystical
ideas of faith and regeneration. In this aspect of it,
men in whom the germ of the new spiritual life is
already present and active have alone the prospect of
a part in the second resurrection, which is finally to
vanquish death and chase away the terrors of the
tomb. The physical resurrection of the future is in-
separably linked to the spiritual resurrection of the
present. * * * If this is the adequate expression
of the thought of Paul, it would be no less true to say
that the resurrection is already virtually accomplished
in the regeneration. The future return to life after
the death which awaits us all will be only the conse-
quence of this first palingenesis." ^

It follows, also, from the same premises that, in the
case of the non-regenerate, the resurrection is one to
confirmed sin and its dire accompaniments of "shame

^■See the chapter on Conversion to God, in Heard's "Tripar-
tite Nature of Man," pp. 201-221.

^ Hist, of Ch. Theology, vol.11, pp. 194-196.

236 THE PAROUSIA.

and everlasting contempt."" The new body, wrought
and actuated by the unrenewed psyche^ has become
psychical^ like the animal body ; nay as much more so
as its nature and capacities enable it to be. If the
resurrection body be something already existent with-
in us, generated and growing there as a part of our
very nature, like a germ within its fruit, and taking
on its character according to the character of the
vital elements which dwell in it, then the resurrection,
i. e., the emerging of that body from the decaying
matrix in which it was formed and its standing up —
anastasis — in a new and independent life of its own,
is a natural event, as truly as death itself, and must
take place with the wicked as well as the righteous.
Our doctrine provides both for the fact and the
results of that resurrection. To the believer in Christ,
that natural event becomes a blessed one, through
grace— the gift of God. Eph. 2:8. To the unbeliev-
er, it is a beginning of the immortal career of a being
in whom the pneuma is forever dead, and which has
lost henceforth all power of regeneration. ''If," says
Dr. Bushnell, in respect to the future condition of the
lost, "we talk of their final restoration, what is going
to restore them, when the very thing we see in them
here is the gradual extinction of their capabilities of
religion ? Their want of God itself dies out, and they
have no God-ward aspirations left. The talent of in-
spiration, of spiritual perception, of love, of faith —
every inlet of their nature that was open to God, is
closed and virtually extirpated. This is no figure of
speech, that merely signifies their virtual obscuration ;

THE TIME OF THE RESURRECTION. 237

it is a fact. By what, then, are they going to be re-
stored ? Will Glod take them up, as they enter into
the future life, and re-create their extirpated faculties
of religion ? Will the pains of hell burn a religion into
their lower faculties, and so restore them ? * * *
A living creature remains, — a mind, a memory, a
heart of passion, fears, irritability, will, — all these re-
main ; nothing is gone but the angel life that stood
with them, and bound them all to God." *

SECTION IV.
THE TIME OF THE RESURRECTION.

When, then, does this spiritual body emerge from
the body of time and sense, and enter into its new, its
resurrection life ?

As we approach this inquiry, it is impossible to
suppress the feeling of sadness that arises from the
thought that this event so full of both joyful and sol-
emn anticipations has come to be almost universally
regarded as far distant. The comfort under sorrow,
the impressive admonitions against worldliness and
carelessness, which would else have been imparted by
it have thus been in great measure lost. The tie
which connects it with the present life and renders it
a rational and natural event has been sundered, and
we are forced to look upon it as a stupendous and in-
comprehensible miracle. As on the kindred topic of

* Sermons for the New Life, pp. 183, 4. The discourse enti-
tled "The capacity of religion extirpated by disuse," is one of
the most eloquent and impressive portraitures of the condition
of a man who has lost thepneuma, and become wholly psychical.

238 THE PAROUSIA.

the time of the Parousia, by pressing the mere costume
of the inspired Word to the obscuring of its import as
determined by the plainest laws of interpretation, the
resurrection has been robbed of its power for present
use and relegated to those shadowy regions of the
future where it stands not as an impending reality,
but at most as a subject of curious, half-skeptical
speculation. Shall it be possible to restore it to that
place in our faith where it was such a star of hope to
the primitive Christians, while they waited amid the
discomforts of this earthly tabernacle for " the house
which is from heaven " ?

Holding in abeyance, then, for a little while the
traditions we have been taught, let us see whether
God's word on being carefully interrogated will not
give us a better view of this great subject.

We answer the proposed inquiiy unhesitatingly,
AT DEATH. Not simultaneously with all the family
of man, in some supposed far-off epoch at the end of
the world, but with each individual at the close of
this mortal life.

1. This is shown in the very constitution of man as
taught us by science. It is a direct corollary from
those facts which we have seen affirmed by our highest
authorities on psychology. When Presidents Hopkins
and Porter, with the cool precision of philosophers,
tell us of the three-fold nature of man ; of the organ-
ific force which builds up this animal frame ; which
may exist separately from it ; which may have already
formed for itself another body, held "ready for occu-
pation and use as soon as it sloughs off the one which

THE TIME OF THE BjuSURBECTION . 239

connects it with the earth," they are in fact teaching
the doctrine of the resurrection at death. Mr. Cook
may be a poet, but the savants whose long and patient
labors with the scalpel and microscope he reports to
us are something more. Who shall gainsay their
testimony?

2. It is only upon the assumption of the resurrec-
tion at death that man's immortality can be shown to
be probable or even possible. President Porter says
expressly, that the present existence of the spiritual
body ready for occupation and use at that time
"permits the only theory of the soul's continued exist-
ence in another state which is consistent with the
facts of our present heing.^^ I know it has always
been customary to talk of " disembodied souls," but
who has ever shown such a thing to be possible?
There is no evidence that a soul separated from a
bodily organism can maintain a conscious existence. It
certainly can have neither force nor consciousness here
unless such connection be preserved, and that too in a
healthful condition. " Pure reason," says Prof. West-
cott, " cannot suggest any arguments to establish the
personality of the soul when finally separated from the
body, and for us personality is only another name for
existence. — Reason points to death as a phenomenon
absolutely singular, which closes life so far as we know
it, and tahes away the conditions of our life. But if
a single experience [the resurrection of Christ] can
show that these conditions are not destroyed, but sus-
pended as far as we observe them, or modified by the
action of some new law : that what seems to be a dis-

240 THE PAROUSIA.

solution is really a transformation : that the soul does
not remain alone in a future state, hut is still united
with our body, that is, with an organism which in a
new sphere expresses the law which our present body
now expresses in this, then reason will welcome the
belief in our future personality no less than instinct." *

Coupling this dependence of the soul upon a cor-
poreal organism for its conscious personality with
the postponement of the resurrection, when such
organism will be restored, to the far distant future,
we come necessarily to the absolute extinction of the
soul at death. The intervening space between the
two events is a total blank. I am aware that many
men of eminence, and even some entire denominations
of Christians, have accepted this as an article of their
faith. To my own mind, scarcely any thing could be
more shocking. Have all the past generations of man
perished in this abyss of nothingness ? Have none of
the race of Adam, Enoch and Elijah alone excepted,
reached heaven ? Is there no better hope for ourselves
beyond this life than that of slumbering till the
unknown and distant era of the resurrection in the
dreamless sleep of the grave ?

I will not stop to adduce the testimonies of the
Scriptures, of which there is such an abundance, to
refute what Calvin calls this " crazy idea " — delira-
mentum. These will sufficiently appear in other con-
nections as we proceed. Rather should the assumption

*The Gospel of the Resurrection, by Brooke Foss Westcott,
D.D. RegiuB Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, England, pp.
154-156.

THE TIME OF THE EESURIiECTION. 241

be rejected which involves such a conclusion. There
is no such intervening period between death and the
resurrection. A strictly disembodied state of the soul
is inconceivable. Science and Scripture alike assure
us that " we shall verily be found clothed, not naked."
2 Cor. 5 : 3. Alford's rendering.

3. This fact furnishes the only ground upon which
the resurrection itself is conceivably possible. A con-
tinuous personality/ only can live again — (wcardvat.
God can create a new being to succeed one that was
laid in the grave ages before ; but such creation is not
a resurrection. Nor does the animal body supply the
indispensable continuity. It perishes ; it ceases to
be. The chemical elements which once entered into
it are indeed still in being, but they alone do not con-
stitute a body. They never made what Dr. Hopkins
calls " that which is really the body.'* There must be
with these " the organific power that has been in the
body from the first, has wrought its changes, has
caused it to be such a body rather than another, and
given it its identity ^ Says Prof. Westcott, "We can-
not understand by body simply a particular aggregate
of matter, but an aggregation of matter as represent-
ing in one form the action of a particular law, or
rather the realization of a special formula. The same
material elements may enter into a thousand bodies,
but the law of each body, as explained above, gives
to it that which is peculiar to and characteristic of it.
— There is nothing unnatural in supposing that the
power which preserves man's personality by acting
according to the individual law of his being, in mold-

242 THE PAROUSIA.

ing the continuous changes of his present material
body, will preserve his personality/ hereafter by still
acting according to the same law in molding the new
element, so to speak, out of which a future body
may be fashioned." * If this continuous personality,
then, be not preserved, there can be no resurrection.
Whatever may be the value of the speculation as
to what constitutes hodily identity, it is intuitively
certain that there must be a personal identity, else
the person raised is not the person that died. It is
also certain that personal identity requires a personal
continuity, the survival after death of that psyche^
with its spiritual body, which is, as Alford says, " the
center of the personal being, the ' I ' of each individ-
ual."

4. But our chief reliance as to this consummate
fact of our existence, must be upon the testimony of
the Bible. We take, then, first, the primary fact
already adverted to that Christ attained his office as
" the Resurrection and the Life," immediately upon
his ascension. It is an inseparable part of his great
Messianic dignity and work which the Father gave to
him as the reward of his sufferings. In its spiritual
department, so to speak, that of giving life to dead
souls, we know that he entered upon that work even
before his death. " The hour is coming, and now is.'''
John 5 : 25. Is it not altogether most reasonable to
believe that shortly after he began, too, that other de-
partment, whose hour also " cometh,"— l'/y;f£r«^— when
all that were in the graves should heai his voice and

* Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 144.

THE TIME OF THE RESUBRECTION. 243

come forth ? Is it likely that he would be solemnly
invested with an official function which was to lie in
abeyance for unknown ages?

5. With this harmonizes his declaration to the sor-
rowing family at Bethany. To their view, the resur-
rection was far away-too far to be a source of comfort
under their grief. " I know that he shall rise again,"
said Martha, " in the resurrection at the last day.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life ;
he that believeth on me even though he have died
yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believ-
eth in me shall never die." True, this does not say
in terms that her hope was too remote, but it certainly
leaves it to be inferred. In Christ, that which they
deemed far distant was a present reality. The prom-
ise and potency of it was already embodied before
them. "Whosoever believeth in me," — (and the words
show that he had reference, not to the dead Lazarus
alone, but to all believers in all time)-is made present
victor over death and the grave. No meaning less than
this is at all commensurate with the tender and solemn
interest of this occasion.

6. Take, next, the analogy employed by the apostle
from the germination of a seed. Nothing can be more
unmistakable or beautiful than the lesson taught as.
" That which thou so west is not quickened except it
die." The death and the quickening are in immedi-
ate succession. Dig up a sprouting kernel of corn,
and see the new shoot springing up directly out of the
old decaying seed. And it is only while the old
still remains, though decomposing, that the germina-

244 THE PABOUSIA.

tion is possible, Sever the germ from its matrix, and
wait till the latter wholly disappears, and no power of
quickening remains.

It has been said that "wheat found in an Egyptian
mummy has been made to grow after its vital ener-
gies had lain dormant three thousand years." ^ Con-
ceding the somewhat questionable fact, it only con-
firms our position. Even in that case, the seed was
"not quickened until it died." It had been deposited
in a position where light and moisture were excluded,
so that the maceration and softening requisite for the
liberation of the germ and its first supplies of food
could not take place. There being no death, there
could be no resurrection. To make the case really
parallel to the supposed distant resurrection, let the
wheat have died and been decomposed three thousand
years ago, and then let it be attempted out of the
slight impalpable dust remaining, if any, to efPect
germination and a new life. None can doubt what
the result would be.

It may be said that God will give the new spiritual
body, as it pleaseth him. True, but so he giveth the
new body of the wheat, and "to every seed its own
body." This, however, does not prove that he dis-
penses with natural laws in so doing. Such laws rule
over all the other processes of life, its conception, its
birth, its growth, its decay, — why may they not over
its close, and the transition to a new life after death ?
" The corporeal renovation of human nature," says
Isaac Taylor, " may properly be regarded as an estab-

^Bib. Sac, vol. II, p. 618.

THE TIME OF THE RESURRECTION. 245

lished part of the great order of the material and sen-
tient universe, or as a natural transition.^ Is not that
one of the lessons designed to be taught under this
very figure of the germinating seed, a process utterly-
inexplicable to human understanding, yet recognized
by all as taking place under one of the most familiar
and unchangeable laws of nature ?

7. The reply of our Lord to the question of the
unbelieving Sadducees as to the woman who had had
seven husbands, directly asserts that the resurrection
was a present fact. Luke 20 : 27-38. Observe the
present tense of all the words. The Sadduces deny
that there is any resurrection, not will be. They ask,
in the resurrection, whose wife is she ? His reply de-
scribes a present condition, — they neither marry, nor
are given in marriage ; they cannot die any more ;
they are equal to the angels, and are the children of
God, being the children of the resurrection. Would
that have been the form of the language if our Lord
had meant to teach a resurrection in the distant future
only ?

But more than this, he expressly affirms that the
resurrection had taken place in the case of Abraham
and the patriarchs. '' That the dead are raised —
iyecfjouTOi — (it is the word specially used to denote
the raising of the 5oc?y) Moses showed at the bush,
when he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not
the God of the dead, but of the living," — i. e., of the
risen. He professes to prove to the Sadducees the fact

* Physical Theory of Another Life, chap. 12.

246 THE PABOUSIA.

of a resurrection — avdcrraac:: — from the then present
condition of these patriarchs, as having already at-
tained it. The very point of the argument fails if
at that time the anastasis with them had not taken
place.

In the same conversation, while correcting the erron-
eous notions of his questioners about the condition of
the departed, he says, "Neither can they die any
more : for they are equal unto the angeW'' — laaYjeXoc,
The connection shows the reference to be not to the
knowledge, or power, or rank of angels, but to their
subjective condition. The dead do not marry, or con-
tinue the corporeal life of this world (compare 1 Cor.
6 : 13), but are like the angels. What, then, accord-
ing to the current opinion of the Jews, was the condi-
tion of the angels ? Let the learned Professor Louis
Mayer, of the German Reformed Theo. Seminary, of
York, Pa., answer. ''The ancients had not the mod-
ern philosophical idea of spirit ; they conceived spirits
to be incorporeal and invisible, but not immaterial,
and supposed their essence to be a pure air or a subtil
fire. — When the ancient Jews called angels spirits^
they did not intend by that term to deny that they
were indued with bodies. If they affirmed that spirits
were incorporeal, they used the term in the sense in
which it was understood by the ancients, that is, free
from the properties of gross matter. — In the Scrip-
tures, angels always appear with bodies and in the hu-
man form, and no intimation is anywhere given that
these bodies are not real, or are only assumed at the
time, and then laid aside. It was manifest, indeed,

THE TIME OF THE RESURRECTION. 247

to the ancients, that the matter of these bodies was
not like that of their own, inasmuch as angels could
make themselves visible and vanish again from their
sight, but this experience would create no doubt of
the reality of their bodies ; it would only suggest to
them that they were not composed of gross matter.
— I do not mean that the fact that angels always
appeared in the human form is a proof that they
really have this form, but that the ancient .Tews be-
lieved so." *

An apparent confirmation of this belief is found in
Paul's glowing description of the spiritual body, in 1
Cor. 15 : 40. " There are celestial hodiesy It does
not seem possible, as many have supposed, that he
meant by these the starry or planetary worlds, — the
" heavenly bodies" in an astronomical sense. The
ancients certainly knew nothing of such bodies ; nor
is there any fitting comparison between these and the
bodies of men. Many of the first commentators,
therefore, — Meyer, de Wette, Alford and Stanley, —
understand here the bodies of angels. Dr. Poor, the
translator of Kling's Commentary on 1 Corinthians
(in Lange) adopts this view. "All the accounts given
of the angels imply the possession of a material vehi-
cle, more subtil and glorious than that of man, capa-
ble of visibility or invisibility, at the option of the
spirit within."

When our Lord, therefore, told the Sadducees that
the departed are " as the angels," or " equal to the
angels," how certainly would they have understood

« Am. Bib. Rep., vol. 12, p. 371-2.

248 THE PAROUSIA.

him to mean that they have bodies like theirs. Not
those which, as in this life, lay the foundation of mar-
riage and these earthly relations, but such as the
angels have, divested of animal passion, ethereal,
celestial, spiritual. Could they have supposed he
meant disembodied spirits, of whose subjective state
they could have formed no conception ?

8. The scene of the Transfiguration presents to us
not only our Saviour in his transfigured body but
Moses and Elijah in glorified bodies, who " spake of
his decease — (literally departure) which he should
accomplish at Jerusalem." At the conclusion of the
scene, the disciples who had been present were com-
manded to "tell the vision to no man until the Son of
Man be risen from the dead." It is added that they
carefully observed the command, " inquiring with
themselves what is the rising from the dead." Can
we question that whatever other purposes this event
was designed to serve, one was to teach them some-
thing about the resurrection ? Did they not behold
an exemplar of what He was to be after that approach-
ing decease, attended by the glorified law-giver and
great prophet of their nation in their risen state, so
that when their Lord should have ascended and become
lost to their mortal sight, they might comfort them-
selves and the bereaved church with the assurance
that he still lived, and that all his faithful saints who
had gone before lived with him ? And in all their
anxious inquiries as to the nature of the resurrection,
must not their ideas have taken shape and color from
this vision? Moses and Elijah had risen, — one who

THE TIME OF THE RESURRECTION. 249

had died on Horeb, and the other who had been trans-
lated without dying, but now in the same subjective
state, the same spiritual bodies, appearing as the type
and promise of what all his people should be.

9. In accordance with this foreshadowed promise
of the glorified state of his saints after death, Christ
declares expressly that thei/ shall be with him. " If I
go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may
be also." " I will that they also whom thou hast
given me be with me where I am., that they may behold
my glory." John 14 : 3 ; 17 : 24. But Christ ascended
to heaven in his resurrection body. Wherever and
whatever heaven may be, it is a sphere adapted to the
abode of such a body. How then can his people be
with him., if they too are not in such a personal condi-
tion of being as to be adapted to that place ? Com-
munion of intercourse, in this sense, seems possible
only when there is a community of state. We cannot
here have intercourse with our departed friends, and
our Lord himself told the disciples that it was expedient
for them that he should go away from them. The
separation is the result of our different conditions of
existence. So in heaven itself, how can his people see
him, drink the new wine of the kingdom with him,
walk with him in white, sit with him in his throne, and
the like, if he have the glorified body of his Messiahship,
and they remain still disembodied spirits ? We may
be told that we do not know enough of the nature of
either body or spirit to affirm its impossibility, which is
true. But all that we do know, and all the probabil-
12

250 THE PAROUSIA.

ities which are discernible in respect to it go to show
that if not an impossibility, it is at least an incongruity
not to be received but upon decisive proof, — which
here we have not.

"Our present body," says Prof. Reuss, "has its
seat in the soul ; that is, in the natural play of certain
animal, sensuous powers ; the future body will have
the spirit as its vital principle, and will be in its sub-
stance heavenly. The mortal element will, so to
speak, be absorbed by a more powerful element,
namely, life. 2 Cor. 5 : 4. This idea springs again
out of that of fellowship with Christ, which recurs
constantly as the fundamental idea of the whole system.
In truth, if our resurrection is a consequence of this
fellowship, it follows that the conditions of the one
will be in harmony with those of the other. We
shall bear the body of the heavenly man, — of Christ
glorified, — as we now bear, (and as he himself bore)
the body of the earthly man, — the first Adam." Vol.
II. p. 198.

10. We find, therefore, that the actual expectation
of the apostles and primitive Christians was that the
resurrection was near. The coming of the Lord might
even be in their life-time, in which case, there would
be an instantaneous change in his living people to fit
them to be with him. " Behold, I shew jow a mystery;
we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed
in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last
trump ; for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall
be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed." 1
Cor. 15 : 52. " The dead in Christ shall rise first ;

THE TIME OF THE BESUBEECTION. 251

then we which are alive and remain shall be caught
up together with them in the clouds," etc. 1 Thess.
4: 17. A full consideration of these passages is
deferred for the present. I refer to them now to show
merely that whatever Paul understood to be the process,
so to speak, of the resurrection, he expected that he
and his brethren would live till it should occur. How
is it possible to give any consistent meaning to his
words on the supposition that he viewed it as many
ages distant?

11. It was this hope of a resurrection at death
that cheered the apostle under the trials of the present
life. In Rom. 8 ; 18-25, he gives us a vivid picture of
the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain
together. He adds, " And not only they but ourselves
also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we
ourselves do groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, (i. e. the full results of it, — for the adoption
itself we have ; verse 15) to wit, the redemption of our
hody.'" Observe, it is not waiting for death, which
would be a release from the body, but for the recovery
of this body from the bondage of sin, corruption and
pain under which it once suffered,— in other words, for
the incorruptible and glorious body of the resurrection
life. This hope, so ardent, by which the apostle adds,
parenthetically, we are saved, does not lie in his mind
as one that is to be realized only after he has lain
thousands of years in the grave. As a matter of fact,
such was not his hope, nor is it the hope of other
Christians ; nay, I maintain as heretofore, that it is a
downright impossibility for any body to be in the

252 THE PAROUSIA.

attitude of waiting, with expectation and desire, for
what is as such a vast remove from him.

12. A fuller statement of the same hope is given
in that most remarkable passage, 2 Cor. 4 : 14-5 ; 10.
The apostle, as before, is speaking of the consolations
which sustained him under his present trials. " Know-
ing," says he, " that he which raised up the Lord
Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus and shall present
us with you," i. e. to his Father in glory as the fruits
of his work of redemption. Compare Jude 24. " For
which cause we faint not, but though our outward
man — the body — perish, yet the inward man — the
spiritual life — is renewed day by day. For our light
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen ; for the things which are
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen
are eternal." Most surely he refers here to a felicity
then awaiting the saints, and not something which is
to be reached only after thousands of years delay.

He then proceeds more distinctly to describe this
glorious hope. Using the familiar figure of a house to
dwell in, he exhibits the contrast between the present
and the future bodies. The one is an " earthly "
abode, to be occupied while we live here ; the other is
" in the heavens." The former is a " tabernacle " —
axjvo(: — frail and transitory; the latter an "edifice —
ocxodo/jLTju — of God, not made with hands and eternal."
"We know," says he, " that if the one were dissolved,
we have the other" — ^xofiev — we have it now ready

THE TIME OF THE RESURRECTION. 253

and waiting for us, and not in the distant ages of the
future. Ai^F^ remarks, after Meyer, " The present Alfc
is used of the time at which the dissolution shall have
taken placeJ^ Is it possible to understand him as
meaning that there will be a vast period of duration
between the two in which the poor naked soul shall
" have " neither ?

" For in this " — our earthly house, — " we do groan,
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon" — (the figure
becomes mixed, being partly that of a house, and
partly that of a garment), " with our house which is
from heaven." The meaning is that we have an earnest
desire to put on that new body, without a dissolution
of the old ; i. e. without having to encounter the pangs
of dying. Then he throws in an incidental remark,
having reference, probably, to those whom he had
combated in his first epistle as denying that there is
any resurrection. "Seeing that," — (our translation
reads, " If so be that," — which seems scarcely intelli-
gible) "WE SHALL REALLY BE FOUND CLOTHED, NOT

NAKED." "The sense," says Alford is this; "For I
do assert again that we shall in that day prove to be
clothed with a body, and not disembodied spirits.''
This seems to be a direct, positive, explicit declaration
of the apostle that men do not exist after death as
disembodied spirits.

He then proceeds, taking up anew the Christian's
longing ; " For we that are in this tabernacle do groan,
being burdened," — we groan heavily or deeply — " not
that we would be unclothed but clothed upon, that
mortality might be swallowed up of life ;" i. e. we do

254 THE PABOUSIA.

not desire to be divested of a body, but that our new-
abode, like a garment, might be put on over the old
one ; that what v^as mortal in the latter might be
absorbed (another figure, incongruous with the other
two but very expressive) by the immortal. Indeed,
he adds, to this very result — the losing of the mortal
in the immortal God has been working, viz., in our
regeneration and sanctification, the first fruits of which
he has already vouchsafed us in the gift of the Spirit.
Therefore, he repeats the confidence before expressed,
that whether that wish could be fulfilled or not, he is
ready to accept the alternative of putting off the body
and passing to his immortal state by death, seeing
that it would take him to the presence of his Lord.
" Wherefore," he says, " we labor that whether pres-
ent " in this mortal body, " or absent " in the immor-
tal body, "we may be accepted of him."

Glancing now through this remarkable and extended
passage ; observing its striking figures, and endeavor-
ing to discover precisely how the subject lay in the
mind of the apostle, I cannot resist the conviction that
he viewed the resurrection in a manner very unlike
that of the traditional theory ; that he believed the
assumption of the spiritual body would immediately
follow the demission of the natural body ; not occur-
ring therefore simultaneously with the whole family of
man, nor at some distant "end of the world," but
successively, as individuals live and die, through all
the ages of time ; — coeval therefore in its beginning
and duration with the Parousia under which it was to
occur.

CHAPTER II.

RELATION OF THE BESURRECTION TO THE PAKOUSIA.

Thus far, we have considered the Anastasis sub-
jectively, as relating to men themselves, — the nature
of the immortal body and the time when it is assumed.
I now pass to inquire into its objective relations to the
kingdom of Christ, and especially to the Parousia
under which the resurrection occurs.

SECTION I.
THE PREPARED PLACE.

In that supreme hour of most intimate and tender
communion, in the upper room of the last supper, our
Lord for the first time disclosed to the disciples some-
thing of the future blessed state of his people. Here-
tofore he had spoken mostly of their duties and trials
on earth, and only in the most general terms of the
rewards that should follow. But he is now about to
leave them. The sad fact is announced, and the gath-
ering shadows of the mysterious tragedy and the
dreadful bereavement already fall heavily upon their
hearts. Beyond the tomb, as their thoughts in antici-
pation go with their departing Lord, they see little to
cheer them. Sheol, the place of the dead under the
earth, with its insatiable demands (Ps. 89 : 48 ; Prov.
30 : 16) and its barred and locked doors (Job 17 : 16 ;

255

25G THE PAnOUSIA.

Rev. 1: 18) was to a ,lo\v the ideal of all that was
gloomy, even though the later teachings of the Rabbis
had mitigated somewhat the terrors of the ancient
views. Compare Luke 16 : 19-31 with Job 10 : 21,
22; Eccl. 9: 10. It was, then, a new truth, trans-
cending all they had ever conceived of, when, instead
of the dark under-world whither past generations had
gone, he pointed them upward to the glorious dwelling
place of God. "In my Father's house are many
mansions — I go to prepare A place for you. And if
I go and prepare a place for you, I will eonie again and
receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye
may be also."

To that place, therefore, he went at his ascension.
He entered not into the holy places made with hands,
which were the figures of the true, but into heaven
itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
Heb. 9 : 24. There he sat down upon his new throne,
where henceforth he was to reign forever. We need
not ask too curiously just where that place is. Possibly
the relations of the spiritual to the material are not
such as to permit an answer. If we were required to
form a conception on the subject, we should be inclined
to locate it in near proximity to the earth itself. I
cannot think of any other world, amid all the suns and
stars, visible or invisible, in which we can have so deep
an interest as this, where the cross was set up, where
the Spirit dwelt with men, where was the outer and
visible kingdom of heaven. Says Isaac Taylor, "Our
conjecture is that within the field occupied by the visi-
ble and ponderable univei*se, and on all sides of us, there

THE PREPARED PLACE. 257

is existing and moving another element, fraught with
another species of life — corporeal indeed, and various
in its orders, but not open to the cognizance of those
who are confined to the conditions of animal organiza-
tion ; not to be seen, not to be heard, not to be felt by
man." » If we may adopt such a conjecture as this,
we may feel that even here in the flesh, heaven is not
far away from us. Were the veil of sense rent away,
and we could see as the young man did who was with
Elisha in the besieged city, we might behold ourselves
surrounded with its inhabitants and its glories. " Ye
are come," said the apostle, " unto Mount Zion, the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and
to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and church of the first born which are written
in heaven." Heb. 12 : 22.

What the preparation was that Christ made in the
place to which he ascended for the reception of his
people, we do not fully know. One thing, however,
we may confidently assert, that, by entering it himself
in his risen state, he fitted it to be a resurrection world.
It is not a place of disembodied spirits. He himself
is not there as such a sjnrit, but in that glorious body
which is the exemplar and the pledge of the glorified
bodies of his saints. The common idea that it is a
world of pure spirits— disemVjodied, incorporeal, naked,
— has no warrant in either reason or Scripture. What-
ever, therefore, was necessary to the freest communion
between him in this glorious incarnate state and those

» Physical Theory of Another Life, chap. xvii. The entire
chapter is worthy of being read in this connection.

258 THE PABOUSIA.

who are to " be with him," — whatever of structure and
scenery and organization and even adornment was
required to make it a fitting world for their abode and
felicity, that, we may be sure, he provided.

The resurrection, then, in its complete idea is not
merely a new existence in the spiritual body, but the
reception of the risen saint into this " place prepared '*
for Christ's people. Of the former all are partakers.
" There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the
just and the unjust." Acts 24 : 15. The latter belongs
only to those who by faith in Christ become one with
him ; members of his body ; quickened together with
him, and made to sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus.

This work of receiving his people into his prepared
place is that which Christ as the Life-giver performs
in his Parousia. " If I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again and receive you unto myself^ that
where I am there ye may be also." It is described in 1
Cor. 15, as subdivided into three stages, of which his
own resurrection and ascension is one. Christ the first
fruits, next the dead in Christ, and thirdly those who
should be alive at his coming.

SECTION n.
THE DEAD IK CHBIST.

" The dead in Christ shall rise first." The first act
of the glorified Life-giver is to receive into his heavenly
kingdom those of his own people who had deceased
from earth prior to his coming.

There are three different phrases by which those

THE DEAD IN CHBIST. 259

here meant are designated. In 1 Cor. 15 : 23 it is
" they that are Christ's." In 1 Thess. 4 : 14, " them
that sleep in Jesus," and in verse 16, "the dead in
Christ." The primary reference, undoubtedly, is to
departed Christians. The apostle had preached to the
Thessalonians the near approach of the Parousia, with
all the blessed hopes connected therewith, so that it
was an object of the liveliest expectation among
that people. But some of the believers meanwhile
had died, and it became a question of deep anxiety
with the survivors as to whether these would have any
share in the expected glories. To meet this anxiety,
Paul expressly says that those who should be alive at
the Parottsia should not precede those who slept. For
as Christ himself had died and risen again, so God
would bring those that slept in Jesus — (Ellicott trans-
lates " those laid to sleep through Jesus ") with him.
It is very clear that in this case departed Christians
only are referred to.

By parity of reason, however, I cannot doubt that
all the pious dead of the former dispensation are
included in the same promise. For these all belonged
to Christ. Though they had not known him in the
flesh, yet they had seen him in the types appointed to
represent him, and had accepted him by faith."
" Abraham," said Christ, " rejoiced to see my day, and
he saw it and was glad." The fathers, in the wilder-
ness, drank of the Spiritual Rock, which was Christ.
1 Cor. 10 : 42. And collectively of the saints of the
former age, it is said, "These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them

260 THE PAROUSIA.

afar off, and were persuaded of them and embraced
them." Heb. 11 : 13.

All those, therefore, who through faith in Jesus
were sleeping in hope, should attain their completed
resurrection at his Parousia. Let as note the recorded
steps of that great transaction.

" The Lord himself shall descend from^ heaven with
a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God." 1 Thess. 4: 16. In the parallel
passage in 1 Cor. 15 : 52 only one of these particulars
is mentioned, — " at the last trump ; for the trumpet
shall sound." I cannot doubt that this is the same
thing that is described by Christ himself in Matt. 24 :
30. " They shall see the Son of Man coming in the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory ; he shall
send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet." I
have already given my reasons for regarding this lan-
guage as the costume under which Christ's assumption
of his new kingdom is presented (see pp. 80-89); and
also as being fulfilled, or beginning to be fulfilled, as
was expressly declared it should be, in that existing
generation (pp. 25-72). To assume that any other
event or period is intended is utterly without warrant.
Besides, the immediate connection shows that the
apostle referred to a near event. He was expecting
that both himself and his brethren would live to see
it, and describes what should happen to those that did,
founding thereon those earnest words of comfort and
warning which are contained in the chapter following.

" And the dead in Christ shall rise first." This is
not the " first resurrection " mentioned in Rev. 20 : 5 ;

THE BEAD IN CHRIST. 261

as Ellicott says, " not with any reference to " that,
" but, as the following then — inecra — siiggests, only to
the fact that the resurrection of the dead in Christ
shall be prior to the assumption of the living." I
understand by this, that the first act of Christ in his
kingly glory, was to bring into his '^ prepared place "
the whole number of the pious dead who had departed
before that event. They had indeed survived death
and were existing in the ethereal and immortal bodies
which they had then put on, but they had not been
received into the " many mansions " appointed to be
the final abode of the blessed, and which had been
"prepared" for their reception only when Christ
ascended thither in his own resurrection body. In
this blessed assumption to his own dwelling place, was
their resurrection complete. The former was indeed
a resurrection from the grave ; the latter alone, was a
resurrection to everlasting life.

Where, then, if the departed saints of the elder
time had risen from the dead, but had not been received
to the Christian heaven, had they been ? We answer,
In Hades,

Hades, — in Hebrew, Sheol, — was in the belief of
the Jews the place of the departed, where they were
detained while awaiting the final judgment. The
clearest view of it given us in the New Testament is
in our Saviour's narrative of the Rich Man and Laz-
arus, a narrative which must be regarded as confirm-
ing it, in its main features, as a reality. Hades was
a place of happiness or suffering according to the
characters of its inmates, but both these, with the

262 THE PAROUSIA.

place itself were regarded as temporary, the one to be
succeeded, after the judgment, by the final blessedness
of heaven, the other by the lake of fire which is the
second death.

It has been the opinion of many interpreters,
especially in the Roman and Anglican churches, that
Christ at his death visited this world of the departed
— as it is expressed in the Apostles' Creed, "He
descended into Hell." His purpose in so doing is
described to have been to announce to the souls
detained there the completion of his work of redemp-
tion, and then gathering his saints unto him, to burst
the gates of that waiting place and ascend with them
to his throne in glory. This theory is founded chiefl}'
on the two passages occurring in 1 Peter 3 : 19 ; 4:6.
It is probably alluded to in the ancient hymn of the
" Te Deum," " When thou hadst overcome the sharp-
ness of death, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven
to all believers.*'

Whether this theory in all its details be accepted or
not, the conclusion of it harmonizes remarkably with
what I have conceived to be the meaning of this res-
urrection of the departed saints at Christ's Parousia.
To this the apostle seems to refer in describing the
incomplete state of these saints in Heb. 11. " These
all, having obtained a good report through faith, re-
ceived not the promise,''^ i. e., says Alford, "The Pkom-
ISE, by eminence, the promise of final salvation." —
"God having provided some better thing for us, that
they without us should not be made perfect." Alford
continues, "We must understand by the expression

THE CHANGE OF THE LIVING. 263

something better than they had, viz : the enjoyment
here of the fulfillment of the promise, which they never
had here, and only have there since Christ's descent
into Hades and ascension into Heaven." — " The writer
implies, as indeed, ch. 10 : 14 seems to testify, that
the advent and work of Christ has changed the state
of the O. T. fathers and saints into greater and per-
fect bliss ; an inference which is forced on us by many
other places in Scripture, so that the result with regard
to them is, that their spirits, from the time when Christ
descended into Hades and ascended up into Heaven,
enjoy heavenly blessedness." So likewise in Heb.
12 ; 23. " Ye are come unto Mount Zion and unto
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to an innumerable company of angels, to the gen-
eral assembly and church of the first-born which are
written in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and
to the spirits of Just men made perfect^ and to Jesus
the mediator of the new covenant." Such was the
place prepared by the ascended Redeemer for his peo-
ple ; such the society to which it admits them ; there
already was the church of the first-born, — the spirits
of the just perfected in the glorious bodies of the res-
urrection state,with Jesus himself, the mediator, in his
risen body still bearing the marks of that great sacri-
fice which signified better things than the blood of
Abel.

SECTION III.
THE CHANGE OF THE LIVING.

" Then we which are alive and remain [unto the

264 THE PABOUSIA.

coming — Parousia — of the Lord: verse 15] shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air." 1 Thess. 4 : 17. " We shall not
all sleep but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." 1 Cor.
15: 51-2.

The bearing of this passage on the time of the Par-
ousia I have before discussed. See pp. 34-36. That
Paul included himself and the Thessalonians as among
the "living" at that time, most commentators now
admit. The Greek word translated "which remain'*
—of 7T£pd£(7r6j^£POi—ssijs Ellicott, "is simply and purely
present. — At the time of writing these words St. Paul
was one of the 'living' and 'remaining,' and as such he
distinguishes himself from the 'sleeping' and naturally
identifies himself with the class to which he then be-
longed." It is affirmed of these : —

1. That they shall ^'not sleep.^'' That is, they shall
not, as those before them, descend into Hades, there
to wait for Christ's coming. They shall pass directly
to his presence, without going through that interme-
diate place. Is not this the meaning of Christ's words
to Martha, " He that liveth and believeth in me shall
never die .^" We should remember what death was to
the apprehension of a Jew ; how drear and forbidding
the dark under-world into which it would introduce
him, to have any realization of what such a promise
would be to him. It does not mean that the body
would not be put off in the ordinary course of nature,
but that this would no longer be death. It would be

THE CHANGE OF THE LIVING. 265

as the apostle termed it, "to depart and be with
Christ." Henceforth

"There is no death; what seems so is transition."

"By the death of Christ," says Alford (2 Tim.
1 : 10), "Death has lost his sting, and is henceforth of
no more account ; consequently, the mere act of natu-
ral death is evermore treated by the Lord himself and
his apostles, as of no account (compare John 11 : 26 ;
Rom. 8 : 2, 38 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 55; Heb. 2 : 14), and its
actual and total abolition foretold ; Rev. 21 : 4."

2. That they shall be changed instantaneously.
This appears still to be in contrast with the state of
the sleepers. A long time elapsed after they dropped
the natural body, before they arose from Hades into
the light and blessedness of heaven. But Christians
who live in and under the Parousia shall pass thither
directly. The change shall be "in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye." Observe : it is not said that all
shall be changed in the same moment ; that it shall be
simultaneous with the whole body of Christians who
shall live under the Parousia. It could not be, in
fact, because all do not live at the same time. Gen-
eration shall succeed generation through all the ages.
Each individual, as he completes this life of probation
shall, when the Lord calls him, pass at once to his
"place" in the many mansions.

**One gentle sigh his fetters breaks;

We scarce can say, 'He's gone!'
Before the willing spirit takes

Its mansion near the throne."

266 THE PABOUSIA.

3. That they shall be caught up in the clouds into
the air. Of course this is at the time of the change.
The form of speech is apparently taken from the trans-
lation of the prophet Elijah. As he did not die but
was caught up in a chariot of fire and cloud into
heaven, so Christians will be rapt away in glorious
cloud chariots, — "the clouds forming the element with
which they would be surrounded, and in which they
would be borne up to meet their coming Lord. The
transformation specified in 1 Cor. 25 : 52, 53, will nec-
essarily first take place, upon which the glorified and
luciform body will be caught up in the enveloping
and up-bearing clouds." Ellicott. Need it be said
that these are not the clouds of our material atmos-
phere ? The expression "into the air," conforms evi-
dently to popular apprehension, as when we speak of
going up to heaven. Says Ellicott, "The air, as de
Wette well observes, marks the way to heaven^

4. This change of the living shall be, — that is he-
gin to be, — at the same time that the sleepers in Christ
are taken up to the presence of the Lord. "Caught
up together with them ; i. e., says Ellicott, " we shall
be caught up with them at the same time that they
shall be caught up." Paul had just before said that
those who were living at the time of the Parousia
should not precede the sleepers ; so now he says the
sleepers shall not precede the living. Those from
Hades, these from time ; the former after long waiting,
the latter instantaneously, shall experience the full
power of the resurrection, being ushered together into
the presence of the glorified and now coming Messiah.

^^ THE CHANGE OF THE LIVING. 267

5. Both these events shall be at his coming in his
Parousia. The risen dead and the changed living
shall be caught up together to meet him in that com-
ing. The apostle adds, " So shall we ever be with the
Lord." This shall be the fulfillment of his promise
and of his prayer, that they whom the Father had giv-
en him should be with him where he is to behold his
glory. John 17 : 24.

It is scarcely necessary to say that this grand series
of events occurs wholly in the invisible world. The
coming of Christ with his angels, the blowing of the
trumpet, the ascension of the risen sleepers, the instan-
taneous change of those living under the Parousia
and their assumption to meet the Lord in the air, — all
these are spiritual events, above the sphere of sense.
Their indices appear here in the changed aspect of
death to Christ's people, the radiant peace which fills

"The chamber where the good man meets his fate,"

and in the dear remains which we so tenderly lay away
in the earth whence they were taken, but their occur-
rence as facts lies within the veil, to be first seen by
the Christian only when the Saviour comes to him, to
receive him to himself.

I am very sensible how far the view I have given
above of these difficult passages differs from the tra-
ditional doctrine of the resurrection. Differs in form,
I mean ; for I trust it is not inferior to it in its deep-
est significance and force. We may, perhaps, be helped

268 THE PAROUSIA.

to a clearer estimate of its merits by glancing for a
moment at the chief features of this traditional doc-
trine.

It is founded, as all know, on the literal acceptation
of the scripture language in its baldest, most material
sense. Of the signification of that language as used
by the Jews in Christ's day, of their belief respecting
death and Hades, and of the relations between those
who lived before and after Christ's own death and
resurrection, no account seems to be made. The body
is this material frame, of bones and flesh and blood.
Christ will come in the clouds of our atmosphere, with
an angel blowing a trumpet, and with a loud voice
will address the generations of the dead and bid them
come forth out of the graves. Let a learned divine
and poet of the last century describe to us the scene
that shall follow.

"Now monuments prove faithful to tlieir trust
And render back their long committed dust;
Now charnels rattle ; scattered limbs and all
The various bones, obsequious to the call,
Self-moved advance ; the neck, perhaps, to meet
The distant head ; the distant head the feet.
Dreadful to view ! see, though the dusky sky-
Fragments of bodies in confusion fly.
To distant regions journeying, there to claim
Deserted members and complete the frame.
The severed head and trunk shall join once more,
Though realms now rise between and oceans roar;
The trumpet sound each vagrant mote shall hear,
Or fixed in earth, or if afloat in air.
Obey the signal wafted in the wind.
And not one sleeping atom lag behind.
So swarming bees that, on a summer's day,

THE CHANGE OF THE LIVING. 269

In airy rings and wild meanders play,

Charmed with the brazen sound their wanderings end,

And gently circling on a bough descend."

The Last Day, by Dr. Young.

This gross, mediaeval conception of the resurrection
has doubtless been more or less modified in our own
day. President Dwight, for instance, discarded the
idea that the resurrection body is the same as this mortal
body, either in the particles that compose it or the
constitution, arrangement, and qualities of its elements.
" Reason," says he, " decides with absolute certainty
that a constitution which involves in its nature decay
and termination cannot belong to a body destined for
the residence of an immortal and ever vigorous mind."
This was a vast innovation upon the ancient opinions.
Had the learned President followed out his own
reasonings, we can hardly doubt that he would in like
manner have rescued the remainder of the doctrine
from its repulsive materialistic aspects.

It is still generally held that the resurrection is to
be simultaneous, at the far distant " end of the world,"
at the visible appearance of the Lord in the clouds to
judge both the living and the dead. All this, as
before said, is built up on the mere costume of descrip-
tions relating to events which I have endeavored to
show are now long past. The only coming of the Lord
in the clouds that men were bidden to expect, they
were also bidden to look for in the generation then
existing. The only end of the world ever spoken of,
was that which the apostle declared to be at hand. 1
Pet. 4 : 7.^

» " The apostles, it is urged, looked for an immediate * end of

270 THE PAROUSIA.

The theory of a far distant simultaneous resurrec-
tion involves difficulties of the very gravest magni-
tude. It necessitates a belief in the extinction of the
soul at death, or in the existence of a world of disem-
bodied, naked spirits. The former of these is ahke ab-
horrent to all the instincts and hopes of men, and con-
trary to all the teacliings of the Bible. The latter, as
I have tried to show, is opposed to all we know of the
nature of man, and all we know of the nature and
state of the heavenly world. It is inconsistent, more-
over, with the very idea of a resurrection as involving
the continuation of personality. It destroys that bond
of vital union with Christ, our risen and glorified
Lord, out of which our resurrection comes as a direct
consequence. That union, as Prof. Reuss says, is "the
fundamental idea" of the apostle's doctrine of the res-
urrection. '' The theory," he says further, "of a uni-
versal and simultaneous resurrection is in fact taken
from Judeo-Christianity, and harmonizes but ill with

the world,' and the event shews that they were in error. Yet
to any one who really penetrates below the surface of the first
age, it will be equally evident that the ' end of the world ' was
expected and that it really came. It is possible that the apostles
themselves, like the prophets in earlier times, did not realize
the mode in which their expectations would be fulfilled; it is
certain that many who heard them affixed false and chimerical
interpretations to their teaching ; but in the light of Christian
history their written words were fully accomplished. The
destruction of Jerusalem is ' the meeting of the ages ' [1 Cor.
10: 11] the death of the 'old world' and the birth of the 'new
world.' The Lord ' came ' when the acknowledged center of
* the people of God ' was desolated. A spiritual and universal
presence [Parousia] was substituted for a material and local
presence." Westcott, p. 218.

THE CHANGE OF THE LIVING. 271

the system of Paul which rests upon wholly different
foundations. We shall not be astonished to find the
religious consciousness of the apostle shaking off at
times the fetters imposed upon it by this doctrine,
and seeking a solution more in accordance with the
premises of his own system. Thus the present life,
which is represented as a temporary sojourn in a body
which binds us to earth, is called absence, a separation
from our true home which is with Christ. To be
parted from this body is to be joined to Christ ; it is
to find the home for which our hearts sigh. By these
same terms the idea of an intermediate state is set
aside ; there is no more room for it ; but the idea of a
universal and simultaneous resurrection is rendered
untenable also^ Vol. II, p. 198. In like manner the
late Prof. E. T. Fitch of Yale College says, "The res-
urrection of the body spoken of in 1 Cor. 15, is not
the re-animation of the organized body that was laid
down in the grave, but rather the gift to the soul of
a far different body like that of the glorified Jesus,
not of flesh and blood as before, but fashioned glori-
ously, such as Christians who remain alive at the com-
ing of Christ will receive by miraculous change.
Hence, it is not so obvious as might at first appear
that these spiritual bodies of the saints are not given
to them at death.^'' N. Englander, vol. XXV.

And says Prof. Reuss, " A natural consequence of
what has been said as to the intimate connection be-
tween faith and the resurrection is, that there can be
no interval between the present life and the future, —
between death and the resurrection in the gospel sense

272 THE PAROUSIA.

of the latter. If faith is the cause of life, the effect
must follow wherever the cause exists and operates.
If the bond between the cause and effect could be
broken, the cause would remain forever dead and
barren."

It is very possible that we shall be warned of the
danger of entertaining the views here advanced, from
the condemnation pronounced by the apostle upon
Hymenseus and Philetus, "who concerning the truth
have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already,
and overthrow the faith of some." To this it will be
sufficient to reply that the doctrine they taught was
very different from ours. They understood the res-
urrection to be merely man's escape from ignorance
by faith in Christ, which was consummated in baptism.*
The real doctrine of the resurrection they denied
altogether.

*Tertullian described it as " ignorantise morte discussa,
velut de sepulcro veteris hominis eruperit ; — exinde ergo resur-
rectionem fide consecutos cum Domino esse cum eum in baptis-
mate indueiint." Quoted in Alford.

CHAPTER III.

THE RESURRECTION LIFE.

There are certain practical inferences suggested by
the foregoing views which, though not sufficiently-
established by positive scripture teaching to be regard-
ed as doctrine, seem to be highly probable, and fraught
with much that is both comforting and admonitory in
the anticipation of the future life.

1. The first is that the spiritual body, the ethereal
investiture of the psyche or soul, having its germinal
existence in the present body and emerging therefrom
with the soul at death, retains in the resurrection state
the present human form. The authorities cited by
Mr. Cook as having demonstrated its present existence
teach that it has that form now ; that could it be dis-
solved out of the animal structure, as the osseous and
muscular system, the veins, the arteries, and the nerves
might be, it would be every wliere coincident with the
human physical outline. P. 225. In the scene of
tlie transfiguration, not only Christ himself but Moses
and Elijah evidently had that form. The Saviour
appeared in it to St. John in Patmos. Even the angels
are always represented in the same manner. "We
assume," says Mr. Taylor, " that the apparent import
of some passages and phrases of Scripture tends to
suggest the belief that the die of human nature, as to

13 273

274 THE PABOUSIA.

its form and figure, is to be used again in a new world.
Partly on the ground of inferences from general prin-
ciples, and partly on the strength of particular asser-
tions, we suppose that the fair and faultless paradisaical
model of human beauty and majesty, which stood forth
as the most illustrious instance of creative wisdom —
the bright gem of the visible world — this form, too,
which has been borne and consecrated by incarnate
Deity — that it shall at length regain its forfeited hon-
ors and once more be pronounced ' very good,' so good
as to forbid its being superseded ; on the contrary,
that it shall be reinstated and allowed, after its long
degradation, to enjoy its birthright of immortality." ^
2. The second inference, in the same direction, is
that having the human form, that spiritual body will
wear, sufficiently at least for recognition, the features
of the present body. President Dwight, in his sermon
on the resurrection, says, " That the body will be the
same, in such a sense as to be known, appears suffi-
ciently evident from the Scriptures. Mankind will
know each other in the future world, and their bodies
will be so far the same as to become the means of this
knowledge." Vol. IV. pp. 434, 5. Here, then, we
find an answer to the question so often wrung from"
bereaved and sorrowing hearts, " Shall we know our
friends in heaven ? " — a question forced upon them by
the defectiveness of our traditional ideas of the resur-
rection. It is impossible to frame a definite concep-
tion of a disembodied spirit. Form and features are
the result of extension, and that is a property of

* Physical Theory, Chapter xi.

THE RESURRECTION LIFE. 275

matter. The attributes of spirit are thought, feeling,
volition, but these do not constitute personality.
There is nothing in such case for the imagination, the
creative faculty of the mind, to lay hold of and shape
into a conception which it can think of, much less
can view as corresponding to an actually existing being.
Therefore, to ordinary apprehension the heavenly
world is a realm of shadows, and the broken heart
turning back from its cheerless emptiness cries out
piteously for any evidence that the dear departed can
ever be known. But if the soul goes forth not un-
clothed but arrayed in its glorious spiritual body,
bearing the known and loved features of this life with
their expression only intensified by the perfection they
will have attained in putting on immortality, then the
recognition will be even more easy than here on earth.

3. So, thirdly, the conditions are realized upon
which society/ becomes possible. As the risen saint
can '' be with " his risen Lord, so risen saints can be
with each other. There can be intercourse and com-
munion between them. They can together worship
and serve. From the East and the West they can
come and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
in the kingdom of God. Heaven becomes a commu-
nity ; its inmates members of the family of Christ, one
in him as he is one with the Father.

4. It does not seem impossible or improbable that
the relationships of the present world, in their spiritual
aspects at least, may be continued in the resurrection
life. Have not the words of Christ in reply to the Sad-
ducees been pressed beyond his intended meaning?

276 THE PAROUSIA.

In that life " they neither marry nor are given in mar-
riage, but are as the angels." But that is not saying
that the effects of this first of all earthly relations do
not continue. The work of probation was very largely
wrought out through these very relations. The mother
is often as truly a mother to her son's spiritual as to
his earthly life. Husband and wife who were really
united in love, and for twenty, forty, and sometimes
sixty years lived together in the most intimate of all
ties, — working together in the common tasks of life,
and sharing together in all its outward experiences,
become so molded to each other and assimilated in
all the elements of their being, that they are spiritually
one. It is a species of violence even to conceive of
all this so done away as to render these two persons
no more or different towards each other in the heavenly
state than towards any others. So. with the difference
of sex. In it, probably more than any one thing of
time, are the causes which determine human character.
How is it possible that a retribution which consists in
the fruits of an earthly probation should show no cor-
respondence to these earthly peculiarities? How can
it be true that " whatsoever a man soweth that shall
he also reap," if the reaping do not bear some distinct
and recognizable marks of the sowing ?

In the doctrine of the spiritual body, then, as now
exhibited, we see a ground for anticipating the contin-
uance, in all their spiritual aspects and results, of the
present relationships of life. We do not believe that
all the pure loves, the tender sympathies, the sweet
companionships of time, which give to life here its

THE BESUBBECTION LIFE. 277

chiefest enjoyments, are to perish with the expiring
breath. We cannot reprove as unfounded the yearn-
ing of the mother for the meeting with her little one
at the portals of the heavenly mansions. Rather is it
the very inspiration of Christian hope which sings : —

" She is not dead, — the child of our affection —

But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection

And Christ himself doth rule.

*'In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,

By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,

She lives whom we call dead.

"Day after day we think what she is doing

In those bright realms of air ;
Tear after year her tender steps pursuing,

Behold her grown more fair.

" Thus do we walk with her and keep unbroken

The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance though unspoken

May reach her where she lives."

So with all the other ties of nature. Because they are
such we believe them to be immortal. Were there no
other proof of this, the very fact that our Lord liim-
self was born into these human relationships and sanc-
tified them by his divine experience would be to us a
pledge of their perpetuity. He will no more cease to
be the Son of Man, than he can cease to be the Son
of God.

6. In fine, we may conclude from all these consid-
erations, that the heavenly world is much nearer to us,
not only in space and time but also in its essential
nature, than we have been wont to imagine. Though

278 THE PABOUSIA.

it be a spiritual world, it is yet a world of substance.
If its inhabitants are in part human beings glorified,
is it too much to infer that its scenery, its employments,
its joys, are those of earth glorified? Is there no
meaning in the description of a heavenly city, with
streets and houses, and a river of life, and fruit bear-
ing trees, and white robes, and palm branches of
victory, and harps, and vials of odors, and all manner
of precious stones, and the bread and the new wine of
the kingdom, of which the Lord will partake with his
people ? For disembodied spirits, indeed, having no
element to connect them with a material universe, all
these can have no appreciable meaning. But to those
who have been made like to Christ in his resurrection
body, they may all be as real as that body itself. They
give us glimpses of a world having substance and
color and warmth ; a world that we can think of ; with
pleasures and businesses that we can anticipate,
instead of formless shadows and mirages as unsubstan-
tial as the fancies of a dream.

6. At the same time, we have a substantial basis
on which to build those conceptions of a life higher
than this of earth, which it is reasonable to expect in
heaven. For as the spiritual body excels the fleshly
in all the elements of beauty and strength and capacity,
so we may believe that its separate experience both
active and passive will be immeasurably superior to
that of the present life. Mr. Isaac Taylor has drawn
out the supposed particulars of such a condition in his
" Physical Theory of Another Life," a work in which
the boldest conjecture is mingled with the most careful

THE EESUBEECTION LIFE. 279

philosophy, in sketching the consequences which may
be conceived to follow the substitution of a spiritual
for the present animal body. They are, to state them
in our own words, 1. An enlarged power of mind
over matter, such as shall enable one to move at will
through the physical universe. 2. A direct percep-
tion and knowledge of all the facts of that universe.
3. An intuitive knowledge of the interior nature and
properties of all matter. 4. A perfect memory. 5.
The power of incessant mental activity. 6. The
power to carry on many processes of thought at the
same time. 7. An intuitive perception of abstract
truth, however complicated. 8. The power of exact
infallible utterance, in other words, a perfect language.
9. The body a perfect instrument and servant of the
mind.

I could not, if I attempted, develop the consequences
of such a supposed series of facts as constituting, in
part, the elements of the spiritual life, as this learned
and able author does. I refer to them as giving us
hints which we may use, and add to at our pleasure,
in our endeavors to make that life real, and so an
object of stimulating hope and rational expectation.
To that end we need two things-that the world which
is to be our final home shall be something higher than
this, and at the same time shall not be wholly unlike
this. While thus satisfying our most ardent anticipa-
tions, it will wear also aspects of familiarity that will
make it a liome to us. It will promise us society,
scenes, occupations, and even service, like those to
which we had been trained while fitting for that

280 THE PAROUSIA.

world, only transfigured in glory and joyousness as
becomes the dwelling place of the Lord.

"For doubt not that in other worlds above,
There must be other offices of love ;
That other tasks and ministries there are
Since it is promised that His servants there,
Shall serve Him still." — Trench.

PART IV

CHRIST AS JUDGE

In his Parousia, Christ was to exercise the functions
of a JUDGE. '' It is he which was ordained of God to
be the Judge of quick and dead." Acts 10: 42.
" The Father judge th no man, but hath committed all
judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the
Son, even as they honor the Father." John 5 : 22, 23.
This, indeed, is one of the prerogatives pertaining to
him as King. That sovereign authority which gives
law to his moral universe, guards also its honor and
applies its sanctions. We have seen (p. 19) that in
the Old Testament usage the two words signifying to
reign and to judge are nearly synonymous, and often
used interchangeably. But it is more in accordance
with modern usage to conceive of the two as distinct,
understanding by the latter the execution of law, and
in general, the maintainance of the principles of jus-
tice and righteousness among the subjects of his king-
dom".

282 THE PAROUSIA.

SECTION I.
THE COSTUME OF THE JUDGMENT.

The form under which this part of our Lord's
administration is presented to us, like most other mat-
ters in eschatology, is to be found in the Old Testa-
ment. Says the learned Joseph Mede, " The mother-
text of Scripture whence the church of the Jews
grounded the name and expectation of the G-reat Bay
of Judgment^ with the circumstances thereto belong-
ing, and where unto almost all the descriptions and
expressions thereof in the New Testament have refer-
ence, is that vision in the seventh of Daniel, of a ses-
sion of judgment when the fourth beast came to be
destroyed ; where this great assizes is represented after
the manner of the great Synedrion^ or Consistory of
Israel, wherein the " Pater Judicii " had his " Assess-
ores" sitting upon seats placed semi-circle-wise before
him, from his right hand to his left. ' I beheld,' says
Daniel, (verse 9,) Hill the thrones or seats were pitched
down ' (viz. for the senators to sit upon ; not ' thrown
down' as we of late have it) 'and the Ancient of
Days (Pater Consistorii) did sit,' etc., ' and I beheld
till the Judgment was set' (i. e. the whole Sanhedrim)
^ and the books were opened.' Here we see both the
form of the judgment delineated, and the name of
judgment expressed, which is afterwards yet twice
more repeated, Ver. 21, 22, 2Q. From this descrip-
tion it came that the Jews gave it the name of Yom
Din^ and Yom Dina rahba., the ' Day of Judgment,'
and the ' Day of the Great Judgment ' ; whence, in the

THE COSTUME OF THE JUDGMENT. 283

epistle of St. Jude, (ver. 6), it is called xfnac;; fitydhi^
■fjfxipar., the judgment of the great day. From the
same fountain are derived those expressions in the
Gospel, where this ' day ' is intimated or described ;
' The Son of man shall come in the clouds of heaven.'
' The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father
with his holy angels,' forasmuch as it is said here
(ver. 1) ' Thousands and thousands ministered unto
him,' etc., and that Daniel saw (ver. 13), 'One like
the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, and
he came unto the Ancient of Da^^s, and they brought
him (or placed him) near him,' etc. Hence St. Paul
learned that 'the saints shall judge the world ' because
it is said that ' many thrones were set,' and (ver. 22)
by way of exposition, that ' judgment was given to the
saints of the Most High.' " Quoted in Bush's Anas-
tasis^ pp. 279, 80.

In his own description of the judgment (Matt. 25 :
31-46), our Lord somewhat modifies the form. The
Judge is here the King sitting in majesty upon his
throne. A vast retinue of angels attend him and wait
to do his bidding. His heralds, with sounding trum-
pets, summon the nations of mankind into his pres-
ence. Their deeds are tried by the fundamental law
of the kingdom, — the law of love, — of which the King
himself in the days of his humiliation had been an
exemplar. Those who have obeyed that law are
received to the place of favor on his right hand and
admitted to the honors and felicities of his kingdom,
while those that have failed in that obedience are ban-
ished from his presence to the prison prepared for the
King's enemies, there to be punished for ever.

284 THE PABOUSIA.

Such is the costume under which the grand and
solemn truth of the judgment is presented to us, and
like that which invests the coming of Christ, it is
specially adapted to promote the ethical purposes to
be served by that truth. Nothing could be more awe-
inspiring; nothing better fitted to awake in every
being who is to stand at that tribunal that reverent
fear of the Lord which is " the beginning of wisdom."
If, however, we seek to fit it into a system of doctrine
covering the whole field of eschatology, and especially
to adapt it to the doctrine of Christ's Parousia and
kingdom, it is necessary for us to go somewhat behind
this costume and learn, if we can, more exactly what
is signified by it.

SECTION II.
THE TIME OF THE JUDGMENT.

Popular apprehension assigns it, like the second
coming and the resurrection, to the distant future.
Not that this fact is any where expressly asserted in
the Scriptures. It seems to be an inference drawn
from the figure employed of a judicial session, after
the manner of the great Sanhedrim, or of an oriental
court where a monarch in the presence of his grandees
dispenses his favors and his frowns towards his subjects.
As the judgment is to extend to the entire family of
man, so the whole are conceived of as standing together
before the Judge, which implies, of course, that it must
be after all have lived. The same impression has been
strengthened by the phrases, the " end of the world "
and " the last day." So that really a mere incident in

THE TIME OF THE JUDGMENT. 285

the costume, or form under which the majestic truth
has been presented to our conceptions, has been taken
as a literal representation of fact. The Judgment as
the grand event which is to adjust for every individual
the results of life, — the retribution for all its guilt, the
reward for all its virtue, the source of all hope and
comfort under its toils and trials, and of all admoni-
tion against its weakness and wrong-doing, is shorn of
its power as an impending reality and made little more
than a name. " Because sentence against an evil work
is not executed speedily^ therefore the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccl. 8 : 11.
There are, however, very grave difficulties of a pos-
itive kind attending the theory which places the gen-
eral judgment far away, at the so-called end of the
world. For by that supposition, large numbers of
mankind are not judged until long after probation has
closed and after they have been for ages in heaven or
hell. Take the apostle Paul, who had so longed to
depart and be with Christ. We cannot doubt that his
holy longing was gratified by the cruel edict of Nero
full eighteen centuries ago. All this time, Paul has
been with his Lord, enjoying the blessed resurrection
of the martyrs, and ascending from grade to grade in
the endless progression of glorj^ and felicity. Are we,
then, to believe that after so long a period, — nay, as
much longer as from now to the end of the world, —
he is to be recalled from his martyr's throne and crown,
to come and take his place by the side of Judas who
equally long ago went " to hi* own phice," and with
those who will have died but yesterday, before the

286 THE PABOUSIA.

judgment seat, to give account of and to receive for
tlie deeds done in the body ? Surely not. All our
ideas of fitness revolt from such an incongruity. The
eternal blessedness of those who having died in the
Lord rest from their labors is not to be broken in
upon afterwards by such a proceeding. Whatever
theory of the judgment involves such a conclusion must
be wrong.

So with its assumed simultaneousness, — where but
in the mere costume of the prediction is it to be found ?
Human life and probation are not simultaneous ; if the
judgment is to be, a portion of men must be judged
before they live, or another portion long after, — which
involves the inconsistency just noticed.

Let us see if a careful inquiry into the Scriptures
will not discover a more reasonable view than is invol-
ved in either of those suppositions.

1. The office of Christ as Judge is an essential
part of his office as King, and cannot be separated
from it. If he now reigns over mankind as their moral
ruler, he must in that very fact be taking cognizance
of their moral conduct as obedient or disobedient sub-
jects. He must, in the nature of things, approve the
former and disapprove the latter. He may, in order
to allow time for a probation, suspend for a while the
administration of the proper rewards of their conduct,
but even this is a judicial act, performed by a present
judicial authority in present exercise. The details of
the judgment, — the time, place, and manner of it, — are
within his discretion and ordered by his supreme wis-
dom, but the fact of it is one already existing, because

THE TIME OF THE JUDGMENT. 287

he has already entered upon his supreme office as
King. This must have been the meaning of his
emphatic assurance to his disciples that before some
of them standing by him tasted death they should see
him coming in the glory of his Father with his angels,
and then he would reward every man according to his
works (Matt. 16 : 27, 28), i. e. would begin an admin-
istration of reward, as each individual should finish his
probation and depart thence to appear before his throne.

2. The nature of moral conduct and of man as a
moral being is such as to imply a virtual judgment,
self registered in every act performed by him, which
judgment is simply declared and confirmed at the bar
of God. He who sins, in so doing places himself under
condemnation. Whatever is fearful in being in that
relation toward God and his law is already incurred,
save only that for a time, while here in the flesh, he is
in a world where he may repent and find pardon. This
is what Christ himself says, " He that believeth not
has been judged already " — qd-rj xixpirac. John 3 : 18.

Already, too, has this judgment been pronounced
upon him. His conscience is the representative of
God, and in his name speaks instantaneously of his
guilt and punishment. And with what appalling dis-
tinctness and power this is sometimes done we all know,
— how it blanches the cheek, and paralyses the limbs,
and conjures up nameless shapes of terror to haunt the
soul and fill it with " a certain fearful looking for of
fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries."
Thus all the elements that can enter into the final sen-
tence exist already. They may be intensified by future

288 THE PABOUSIA.

sin, and they may, — thank God, — be blotted out by
repentance and the cleansing blood of Christ, but these
do not alter the fact that the present character itself
determines the present state. It needs no formal trial,
as in human courts, to ascertain justice. Christ's judg-
ment seat, the accuser, the evidence, the law, and the
verdict are all in man's own heart.

3. It is implied in a state of probation that the
results of it shall be entered on at the close of that
period. In the present life man is in the forming stage
of his being. Law in its strict requirements is made
subservient to Grace. Life and death, heaven and
hell, are held out to him for his choice, while instruc-
tion and entreaty and the discipline of Providence and,
above all, the ministry of the Holy Spirit are given
that he may be won to the love of God. Now all this
implies that when the end of such a state is reached,
its results are expected at once to follow. Both reason
and Scripture are silent as to any second probation
beyond this life. Why then should there be any delay
in entering upon the due rewards of probation ? Why
should the good man who has toiled and suffered for
Christ's sake, — who has finished his course and kept
the faith, — be made to wait for the crown of righteous-
ness laid up for him ? Why should the sinner who
has exhausted hope and become ready for " his own
place," be kept from going to it ? What end of justice,
— what requirement of government, calls for delay for
thousands of years before the end for which every thing
else was but preparation should be reached ?

4. The current language of our Saviour and the

THE TIME OF THE JUDGMENT. 289

apostles in relation to this subject seems to teach that
the judgment period, or '' day " as the Jews termed it,
was then about to begin. Take, first, the great judg-
ment scene described in Matt. 25: 31-46. " When
the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy
angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of
his glory," etc. But in the previous part of this dis-
course it is repeatedly and explicitly affirmed that that
coming should be in that generation ; and the words
" when " and " then " link the judgment with it in
most express terms. I can make no meaning of this
language if it does not teach that the tribunal at
which all nations should be gathered was to be estab-
lished within the period mentioned. So with the
earlier declarations just quoted. " The Son of man
shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels,
and then shall he reward, — i. e. begin to reward — every
man according to his works. — There be some standing
here who shall not taste of death till they see the Son
of man coming in his kingdom." The same idea runs
through all the writings of the apostles. Of the
numerous passages heretofore cited to show that they
regarded the Parousia as near, not a few mention the
judgment particularly as then to be initiated. " He
hath appointed a day in the which he will — (Greek, is
about to) judge the world in righteousness by that
man whom he hath ordained." It is not the simple
future tense of the verb that is here used, but a phrase
made with the auxiliary verb fjtiUoj^ signifying " to he
about to do or suffer any thing, to be on the point of^'*
— rRobinson). It implies that the event to which

290 THE PAROUSIA.

reference was made was very near. The same word
is employed in 2 Tim. 4:1. "I charge thee before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall — is about
to — ^judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and
his kingdom." 1 Peter 4:5. ••' VV' ho shall give account
to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead."
This phrase is stronger than the preceding ; it denotes
that all things are prepared and waiting for the event.
Compare Acts 21 : 13 ; 2 Cor. 10 : 6 ; 12 : 14 ; 1 Peter
4:17. " For the time is come that judgment must
begin at the house of God," — literally, " It is the time
of the beginning of the judgment," a declaration which
Alford expressly acknowledges as referring to the
destruction of Jerusalem which was then near at hand.
And in all those passages which speak of Christ's
coming as a ground of joy or hope or fear, there is an
implied recognition of it as the time when he will
reward his faithful friends and punish his and their
enemies, — in other words as the time of the judgment.
The servants who had received the talents were to
watch because they knew not at what hour their lord
would come to call them to account for their trust.
" Judge nothing before the tim.e," said Paul, referring
to the estimates in which the Corinthians were hold-
ing their different teachers, " until the Lord come who
both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts ; and
then shall every man have praise of God. — Henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous Judge, sliall give me in that
day, and not to me only but also to all them that love

THE TIME OF THE JUDGMENT. 291

his appearing.— Be patient, brethren, unto the Parousia
of the Lord ; stablish your hearts for the Parousia of
the Lord draweth nigh. — Grudge not one against
another lest ye be judged — xtn&r^re ;— behold the Judge
standeth before the door. — Behold I come quickly and
my reward is with me to give every man as his work
shall be." Rev. 22: 12.

Instead, then, of mere inferences drawn from the
figures under which it is described or from the mis-
understood import of the Jewish phrase of " the last
day," I adduce these numerous express statements that
the Judgment, so called, or that period in which Christ
was to possess and execute the office of a Judge over
mankind, and administer the appropriate rewards for
their conduct, disciplinary in the present life and penal
in the life to come, was to hegin^ at least, with the begin-
ning of his kingdom in the generation then existing.
And to this have conformed the facts of history. It
was but a brief space before the first Christians had
evidence that their ascended Lord was a judge as well
as a king. Even among their own number, two who
had seemed to be disciples and were perhaps receiving
special credit for their zeal, were unmasked by a more
than human discernment and smitten in sudden death
for their hypocrisy. It was the beginning of that win-
nowing process which the Baptist had said should
niark the dispensation of the mightier One who should
come after him. By a similar infliction, the Cyprian
sorcerer, Elymas, was taught his temerity in resisting
the preaching of Christ's word bj^ his apostle. Mean-
while, during that long period of forty years from the

292 THE PABOUSIA.

ascension, the tempest of divine justice was gathering
over the guilty city and nation once called the Lord's,
which when at last it was executed struck the nations
with awe, and has ever since stood forth in blazing
light on the page of history as the great judgment
from heaven upon the people who had crucified their
own Messiah. And so it has been in all the ages.
Rome, first the chastiser of persecuting Judaism,
becoming herself a persecutor, was chastised in turn.
Nero, the bloodiest of all her emperors, died like a
dog in a sewer, and the monsters who succeeded him
perished mostly by violence amid the execrations of
mankind ; the barbarous northern hordes at last over-
running her teritory, plundering her capitol, and parti-
tioning out her empire as lawful plunder. A priest
who usurped temporal authority and, as vice-gerent of
the Almighty, claimed the right to make and unmake
kings at his pleasure, and who in the pride of his
power shed the blood of the saints not less abundantly
than his pagan predecessors, is in turn thrust from his
throne and made to drink the cup of humiliation which
he had so often commended to others' lips. A nation
whose capitol witnessed a St. Bartholomew's day, and
whose supreme assembly sought by a decree to legislate
God out of existence and voted death an eternal
sleep, is made to feel the horrors of a revolution at
whose recital the cheek turns pale. A great Republic
which boasted of her Christianity while holding four
millions of souls in iron bondage, is arrested in her
guilty boasting, and taught on a thousand bloody
battle fields that the Christ whom she professed to

THE TIME OF THE JUDGMENT.] 293

worship was He whose office it was to break every yoke
and let the oppressed go free. Do we need other tes-
timony than the record of history itself to prove that
there is a King enthroned over men, — ruling the
nations with a rod of iron, and dashing in pieces like
a potter's vessel ? Says Van Oosterzee(vol. II, p. 801),
" That the history of the world is a continued judgment
of the world, is acknowledged by all who attentively
and believingly observe it."

Thus for nearly two thousand years Christ has been
the Judge of the living. At the same time he has
also been the Judge of the dead. In the history of
individual souls, the present life is a season of proba-
tion, a dispensation of mercy and grace from his
throne. But it is appointed unto men once to die,
and after this the judgment. In the invisible world,
the judgment seat is ever set, and as the multitudes
of men pass out of time they find themselves before
that tribunal. They do not wait for ages before they
are called to their account. Forthwith, as the scenes
of eternity open on their view, they see the throne,
the Judge, and the books ; forthwith do they hear the
sentence, ''Come ye blessed of my Father," or "De-
part ye cursed." In other words, whatever under
these figures is signified of judgment and eternal
award is realized without delay. These go away into
everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life
eternal. Then begins the career of retribution which
is to have no end. No subsequent judgment in some
far distant cycle of duration is to break in upon it, to
repeat a transaction which has already been fully per-

294 THE PABOUSIA.

formed. The door of the prison house once closed
will never be opened again ; the children once safe in
the many mansions of their Father's house will go no
more out forever.

And this, we believe, is the " Day of Judgment," —
well designated as the Day of the Lc)rd, and the Great
Day. It is the day which began when Christ took his
seat on his throne, and will last as long as his throne
endures ; that is, for ever. Is it objected that the
word "day" implies a more limited period, something
analogous to an ordinary solar day ? But this is the
very word chosen by inspiration to represent the great
geologic periods of the creation. Says Prof. J. J.
Owen, " The phrases 'end of the world,' 'day of judg-
ment,' 'day of the Lord,' and the like, are not to be
compressed to an inconsiderable period of time like
our day of twenty-four hours, bvit in the very nature
of things, must be referred to an indefMitely prolonged
period, the length of ivhich is knotvn only to God. It
in called the day of the Lord because it refers to a
period definitely fixed in the counsels of eternity, and
not because it is embraced in the limits of a common
day. Thus in Gen. 2 : 4, the work of creation is re-
ferred to as performed in a single day, whereas we are
told in the preceding chapter that God was employed
six days in the creation of the heavens and the earth.
These days were probably great time periods, and yet
we are not misunderstood, nor do we use language im-
properly when we speak of the day of creation. In
like manner the process of the resurrection and final
judgment may embrace long extended periods of time

A WA RDS OF THE JUDGMENT. 295

and yet be properly referred to as the day of the Lord,
the day of judgment, or still more concisely, the hour
'when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of
the Son of man and come forth." Bib. Sac, Vol. XXI,
p. 369. So likewise. Prof. Van Oosterzee says, "It is
self-evident that the imagery in which the last judg-
ment is presented in holy Scripture admits of no literal
explanation, and on that account all opposition to the
reality of the fact b}^ reason of the plastic form of its
description arises, if not from malevolence, at least
from misconception. Even in the Middle Ages it was
readily granted — 'totum illud judicium, et quoad dis-
cussionem et quoad sententiam, non vocaliter sed
mentaliter perficietur.' — Th. Aquinas. ^^ *

SECTION III.
AWARDS OF THE JUDGMENT.

I have already spoken of the blessed resurrection
state of the righteous, a state which it seems superflu-
ous to say will be eternal. Lest any untrue inference
should be derived from an omission of that subject, I
will venture a very few words here as to the punish-
ment of the wicked.

Upon this awful subject the Scriptures give us but
little specific information, and it were presumptuous
to be wise above what is written. The terms which
are used to describe it are probably figurative, designed
to convey an idea of the fact and of its severity, rather

■That entire judgment, both as respects the investigation
and the sentence, will be performed not in audible words but
in mental processes.

296 THE PAROUSIA.

than its precise nature. The leading idea of it is ex-
clusion from the "place" prepared by Christ in his
Father's house for his people, and banishment into
the "outer darkness, where are weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth." Of the locality, and the phy-
sical conditions of that abode we can af&rm nothing.
Of the mental sufferings attending such a state ; of
the pangs of conscious guilt, rejection from God's
favor, the extinction of hope, the torture of ever un-
satisfied desire, and the like, we may form some con-
ceptions, but have no measures by which to estimate
their amount. It is enough to say that the soul will
be lost. Further than this it would seem best to leave
the subject beneath the awful veil of darkness under
which it is enshrouded in God's word.

On one point, however, I cannot deem the teachings
of the Scriptures to be doubtful, and that is as to the
perpetuity of future punishment. Whatever possible
meanings the phrases may sometimes have which de-
scribe it, I cannot resist the conclusion that they are
designed to teach us that in this connection they mean
endless duration. If the Scriptures were professedly
to set about affirming that doctrine, I know not how
they could do it more explicitly than they have done.
It is not alone in single terms or in direct assertions ;
it is implied in a great many phrases and incidental
utterances which are often even more convincing, if
possible, than the more positive forms of speech. Let
it be remembered that our Lord himself is our princi-
pal instructor on this subject, and that the most fear-
ful imagery and the most appalling language were
spoken by his own gracious lips.

SUMMABY. 297

I may say one thing more. The decisions of the
judgment are represented as final. I can find no hint
of another probation after this present life, — a second
probation for those who may be supposed to have had
no "fair chance" in this. If any such there have been
or may be among the inhabitants of time, they will
most surely be fairly dealt with by a merciful God.
With him we may safely leave them without attempt-
ing to find for them a grace that is nowhere promised,
or a new probation of which Christ the Saviour has
never told us.

Our doctrine, then, may be concisely stated, — The
Parousia of Christ is his abiding presence

AMONG MEN IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS MeSSIANIC

OFFICES OF King, Life-giver, and Judge. Those
offices are three in their aspect only, as relating to dif-
ferent departments of his administration ; in reality,
they are one, constituting that "glory" which he re-
ceived of the Father in reward for his humiliation and
sufferings. The Parousia commenced when, after his
ascension to his throne, he began to "come" or be
manifested to men in the mighty acts performed by
him. His three-fold offices are executed simultan-
eously, running parallel with each other through all
time. Their consummation will be the complete re-
storation of this world to holiness and happiness.
Their duration will be forever.
14

298 THE PAB0U8IA.

Of the doctrine thus presented, I desire to remark
in review :

1. That it is to be regarded neither as a prceterist
nor a, futurist view ; rather does it include both. If it
be affirmed that the Parousia began at the ascension,
it is not meant that it is not also a fact of all the com-
ing ages. If it be spoken of as the object of future
expectation, it is not meant that it has not also begun
to be enjoyed already. I ask especially that I may
not be represented as saying that the resurrection is
"past already," or that the day of judgment occurred
at the destruction of Jerusalem. The Parousia, in-
cluding under it Christ's reign as King, Life-giver,
and Judge, is not an event, but a dispensation. If it
began at the ascension, it is to reach also into the far
distant future, is to be, in fact, everlasting. Viewed,
indeed, as a whole, it may with great propriety be
spoken of as still future, for these two thousand years
since the ascension, in comparison with the ages yet to
come, are but as the first ray of the morning to the
long, bright summer day. Nevertheless the morning
has dawned^ the Day-Star has risen, though the day
in its consummate glory is still before us. Or to re-
peat a figure already used, — we have set forth upon
the illimitable ocean of Christ's reign ; let it not be
said that because we are as yet scarcely out of the
harbor, we have not therefore left the wharf.

2. It is a view which harmonizes, as none other do
with which we are acquainted, all the teachings of the
Scriptures. Why is it that just now, as in fact has
been true more or less during the whole Christian

SUMMARY. 299

period, the Christian church is so divided in opinion
on this subject ? The answer is, because the Scrip-
tures themselves seem to teach two or more contradic-
tory things about it. They affirm the nearness of
the Parousia, and bid men to live expecting and
watching for it, and yet say it was to be at the end
of the world, and to be accompanied by the resur-
rection and general judgment. Now the two parties
choose each their own class of teachings, and fail to
bring into harmonious relations with it the others.
Adventtiss choose the nearness, which is (or was) a
truth, and then compel themselves to look for the
"end" and all the dread phenomena of the winding up
of human affairs as immediately impending events.
Futurists, shrinking from the latter inference, deni/ the
nearness, and defer the Parousia to the distant future.
So with respect to the millennium. The Pre-millena-
rians are most surely right in holding that Christ was to
come to set up a kingdom on earth, and reign over it as
the Messiah, but are just as surely wrong in saying
that that kingdom has not yet been set up and there-
fore the coming is future. Post-millenarians are cer-
tainly right in holding that the kingdom was estab-
lished on the day of Pentecost and is to grow till it
reaches its grand millennial glory, but are just as
clearly wrong in holding that Christ was not to come
till that consummation had been reached, and then
not to reign over it, but to judge the world and imme-
diately surrender the kingdom to the Father. Now the
Scriptures cannot, when rightly interpreted, teach both
these opposites ; they cannot so contradict themselves.

300 THE PABOUSIA.

There must be some way of harmonizing them, and this
is what I have attempted to find. Take the Pre-millen-
arian doctrine (which seems to me least distant from
the truth) and enlarge its conceptions of the Parousia
both ways, carrying it back to the pentecost and
onward into the future indefinitely ; and then make
the resurrection and judgment not single events but
coincident parts of one grand dispensation under the
reign of Christ the King, and the seeming contradic-
tions are nearly all reconciled. Or take the Post-mil-
lenarian doctrine, and let it accept the scenes at the
day of pentecost, which it acknowledges to have been
a coming of Christ, as the beginning of the Parousia,
then let it similarly associate with it the resurrection
and judgment as parts of the dispensation, and discard
the unwarranted idea of Christ's giving up his throne,
and we come again nearly to the same result. The
past, present, and future meet in one grand whole.
All the varied passages of Scripture drop into place in
entire harmony. We have no longer need of invent-
ing a theory of double sense*; of supposing the inspired
writers mistaken; that the primitive church was
required to expect and to watch for events then thous-
ands of years distant ; that these thousands of years
are what the Scriptures mean by "quickly," "at hand,'*
etc. Is not, I cannot help asking, a theory which
comes into the midst of these conflicting opinions and
parties, and with a wider range than either compre-
hends them both, conserving what is true and correct-
ing what by reason chiefly of its narrowness is erron-
eous, reducing all to a substantial harmony, — is it not

SUMMARY. 301

self-evidently to be accepted as in the main the true
one?

3. And this result, let it be observed, is obtained
not by any sacrifice of the great truths which enter
into the substance of the doctrine, but only by modifi-
cations of the accessories of time, order, manner and
costume. The facts of the second coming of Christ,
of his reign as King, of the resurrection of the dead,
and the universal judgment, are fundamental in the
gospel system ; they constitute those " powers of the
world to come " which enforce its demands upon every
human heart. I would not yield for a moment to any
teaching which rejected or weakened their solemn
import. In my judgment, the views now advanced do
neither. It can not detract from the Parousia that it
is held as a dispensation rather than a transient event ;
that its date was A. D. 30 rather than A. D. 1880, or
any other more remote. It cannot weaken its signifi-
cance that it was spiritual and invisible, save only in
the mighty works attending it, rather than visible,
amid the clouds, with the crash of an expiring universe.
It does not detract from Christ's kingly glory that he
reigns by his Spirit and providence over a kingdom of
redeemed souls, rather than over a visible organization
whose capital is at Jerusalem. It does not take from
the majesty of that kingdom that it is to be without
end, rather than surrendered by its king as soon as he
attains undisputed dominion. It does not make the
resurrection any the less momentous that it occurs
when the earthly life ceases, rather than after a slum-
ber of ages in the grave. It does not diminish the

302 THE PAB0U8IA.

solemnity of the judgment that the soul stands forth
with before the great white throne, rather than waits
for that ordeal till the end of time. The facts invol-
ved in all these things are unchanged. The joyous
promises they imply to Christ's people are undimmed.
The solemn admonitions they afford to those outside
his kingdom are not weakened. Life, death, proba-
tion, retribution, time, eternity, are all words of
unabated meaning. Is it not worth while, then, to
consent to such easy modifications in non-essentials —
the mere drapery of the doctrine — as shall allow of a
harmonious adjustment of the facts ; the bringing of
all that is essential into a symmetrical body of truth
which may command the acceptance of all who receive
and love God's word, and will be more than ever before
the power of God unto salvation ?

4. Nay, I am not willing to rest the matter there ;
I must insist that these views give a greatly increased
meaning and force to all the truths involved in them.
They make the Parousia not a matter of expectation
only but a present fact. Christ has come. He is
already on his throne. He is ruling men now. He is
separating them, — by his Word and Spirit and Provi-
dence— as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the
goats; he is giving life to dead souls by regenera-
tion ; and the blessed resurrection life to his people
when the earthly life is no more ; he is pronouncing
the sentence " Come ye blessed" or " Depart ye
cursed " to those who having finished probation stand
before him in judgment. Could our eyes be opened
as those of Elisha's companion were in the besieged

SUMMABY. 303

city, we should see all these as present facts. They
would not lie so remote from us, beyond the horizon of
the future, as to have lost half their solemn signifi-
cance. That we cannot now see them, — that we are
still in the flesh, — does not alter those facts or rob
them of their tremendous import.

Nor, let us remember, is that sight far distant from
any of us. A very few days more, and the scene in
all its unspeakable grandeur will burst upon our vision.
It is but the cessation of this fluttering breath, the
hushing to rest of this throbbing heart, and all that
we now reason of and speculate about will break upon
us as matters of knowledge and experience. Then,
according to his prayer and promise, shall we be forever
with the Lord ; and let us not count ii a vain expecta-
tion, too, that we shall be like him, for we shall see
him as he is.

APPENDIX

A few typographical errors in the preceding pages escaped
the notice of the proof reader, the correction of which will be
obvious without special mention. On page 100, 3d line from
bottom, Matt. 23 should be Matt. 25.

23.

" An unprejudiced comparison of the passages in which
the seer speaks of the coming of the Lord shows that he
understood any personal revelation or energetic self-
affirmation of the exalted Christ as a coming of the Lord.
Sometimes it is preliminary and refers to individual
churches or members of churches; sometimes it is final
and relates to all men ; at one time it is a manifestation
mainly of judicial chastisement, and at another of gracious
olessings. Only from the connection can it be decided
which of these meanings is intended in the particul^*
case. Every personal energetic interposition of the Lord
in the outer or inner life of the church is as really a coming
of the Lord as his second advent will be." Gebhardt, on
the Doctrine of the Apocalypse, p. 270.

DR. DOLLTNGEe's VIEWS OF 2 THESS. 2 : 1-12.

After my remarks respecting the " Man of Sin " were
written, (pp. 65-71) I had the pleasure of falling in with

APPENDIX. 305

the work of the distinguished Dr. Von Dollinger entitled
"First Age of the Church." He is known as the chief
leader in the recent " Old Catholic " movement, and is
probably the prince of living ecclesiastical historians in
Europe. He gives the same views that I have done in
respect to this personage and the scope of the chapter in
which he is described ; and affirms also that it was held
for substance by most of the early Fathers of the church. *
I quote some extracts.

" The epistle is commonly supposed to have been
written in A. D. 53. Claudius was then on the throne.
His step-son Nero, Caligula's nephew, who had been
brought up under the care of a dancer and a barber, was
already married to the emperor's daughter, adopted into
the Claudian family, and proclaimed by the senate,
' Prince of the youth,' (Princeps Juventutis. See Eckhel,
Doctr. Num. viii. 371, seq.,) a title then officially desig-
nating the heir to the throne. It was well known that
his mother Agrippina would only allow him and not
Britannicus to succeed. Claudius had already commend-
ed him to the people by an edict, and declared in a let-
ter to the senate that in case of his death Nero was of age
to reign. Nero took his uncle Caligula more and more
for a model, of whom Josephus says that only his sudden
death delivered the Jews from extermination. Ant. 19.
1. And he soon surpassed his model. His reign corres-
ponded to the apostle's expectation; on the throne he
was really the Man of Sin, exalted over all gods and all
sanctuaries. That he outdid all that the world had yet

*St. Augustine declares; "Ceterum, imperium Romanum
et Keronem in illo loco Pauli intellexere J. Chrysostomus,
Cyrillus, TertuUianus, pluresque a/iipa<?'es, quorum locos indicat
Coquaeus." De Civit. Dei, xx. 19.

306 THE PABOUSIA.

seen in shameless transgression of decency and law and
was in the fullest sense of the word ' lawless,' is noto-
rious. Pliny called him the enemy and common scourge
of the human race. On the other hand, the Armenian
king Tiridates publicly declared him before the Roman
people to be his god, whom he adored as the Sun himself.
On his entrance into Rome, on returning from Greece,
sacrifices were offered to him all along the road. He
counted it a crime in Thraseas that he did not offer to his
divine voice. Suet. 25 ; Dio Cass. 1. 62. p. 714. He
despised all gods and worships, only for a while he served
the Syrian goddess ; but her image too he shamefully dis-
honored, and he took vengeance on Apollo and his
Delphian oracle by depriving him of his lands in Cyrrha,
killing men in the sanctuary, choking up the cavern, and
dragging away five hundred statues.^

" Nero personally undertook nothing against the temple
at Jerusalem, but he appointed Vespasian general in the
war, and thus after his death introduced that desecration
and abomination of desolation in the holy place which
Paul, following the intimations of Christ (Matt. 24: 15),
and the prophecy of Daniel (ch. 8 : 11 ; 11 : 31 ; 12 : 11),
called a sitting in the temple. The apostle did not, of
course, mean this literally, but he meant to say that the
heathen power would dominate even the temple ; that
even this or the holy city would be profaned by the wor-
ship of the emperor.^

^Keligionum usquaequaque contemptor prseter unius dese
Syrise. Hanc mox ita sprevit ut urina contaminaret. Suet. 56 ;
Dio. 1. 63. Pausan. 813.

^ Origen had already perceived that Paul's words about sitting
in the temple were simply an application of Daniel's prophecy.
— Contr. Celsum 7.46— To imagine a literal fulfillment of Paul's
prophecy is to forget that he was not accurately predicting the

APPENDIX. 307

"In the Sibylline books, too, Nero is mentioned as the
destroyer of the temple. The Jewish author who lived
at the time or near it knew well that Vespasian was the
commander, but the real author of the war against Jeru-
salem was Nero. Christ gave as the fulfillment of Daniel's
prophecy the appearance of Gentile troops on the temple-
hill ; Paul's prophecy that the would-be god should sit in
the temple and be worshiped was fulfilled when the
Roman eagles, with images of the emperor, were planted
in the 'holy place 'of the temple, and the emperor-wor-
ship of heathen Rome was regularly practiced where the
service of the true God had been observed.

" Paul had already given the Thessalonians more exact
information, orally, about the event he is writing of. He
is here reminding them of it, and at the same time he
recalls to their memory that he had also described to them
the person who as yet stands in the way of the open
appearance of the Man of Sin. 'You know,' he says,
' him who is now in possession so that the Lawless One
will first appear in his own time. But already the mystery
of lawlessness worketh, or is already preparing for its
open manifestation ; it has to wait awhile, but as soon as
the present ' possessor ' is out of the way the lawlessness
will be revealed.^ Claudius is here intended, and it is

future by virtue of any special prophetic inspiration of his own,
but merely applying to the instruction of the Thessalonians the
knowledge and expectation of approaching events the church
had derived from the words of Christ. All that is essential in
his description is fulfilled in Nero and the events connected with
him.

* JSTatec^on is commonly rendered, " he that impedes " C'with-
holdeth." Eng. Yer. ), but the word does not properly mean to
impede, hinder, or divide, but to possess, contain, hold rule.
See the passages collected in Dindorf's Thesaurus. In the New

308 ^ THE PAROUSIA.

very intelligible why the apostle, in a letter which might
easily fall into the wrong hands, expresses himself in so
enigmatical and secret a manner. The Christians could
not misunderstand him. And in fact, Claudius contrasts
most markedly in this respect with his predecessor Cali-
gula and his successor Nero. He had forbidden sacrifice
and divine honors to be offered to himself as a god, and
had further directed that the adoration paid to Caligula
should not be continued to him nor divine homage be
exhibited when he appeared in public. But Nero and
Agrippina were impatient of his death, and soon after, —
A. D. 54, — he was ' removed out of the way ' by Locusta's
poison, and the new emperor-god was enabled to appear.
" This wicked one Christ will ' destroy by the breath
of his mouth and the brightness of his presence ' ; i. e. he
will execute judgment on this Man of Sin, as he will also
on Jerusalem ; both alike will be an effect of his presence.
# # * Paul had a type of this wicked one in Antiochus,
of whom Daniel said that he should come to his end with-
out deliverance (Dan. 11 : 45), and whose death is treated
in Maccabees as a divine judgment on the profaner of the
sanctuary of the true God. And therefore the words of
Isaiah which Paul has here partly adopted were already
applied by the Jews to Messiah's victory over his enemy
Armillus, — ' With the breath of his lips shall he slay the

Testament, especially with Paul who most often uses the word,
it always means to possess, hold ; no where to restrain, not even
in Kom. 1 : 18, as the context shows. Chrysostom indeed inter-
prets it to koluon, but only from following the traditional notion
that the Kom an Empire is meant. For the rest, the holder or
possessor is here always the hinderer, he that stands in the way.
When the Man of Sin is come into possession [of power] he will
first come forward with his blasphemy. The Vulgate rightly
interprets it "qui tenet."

APPENDIX. 309

wicked.' Dan. 11: 45; 1 Mace. 6: 13; 2 Mace. 9:7;
Isa. 11 : 4.

"If Paul connects the appearance of the 'Adversary'
with Satanic agency, that is all the more natural, as he
connects the more potent manifestations of heathenism
generally, the heathen rejection or hatred of the faith,
with Satanic operations. ' The god of this world has
blinded the minds of unbelievers' — 'works in the sons of
unbelief.' 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2 : 2. The use of lying
wonders and signs, which Paul foresees, is again satanic.
And it is noteworthy that Pliny tells us nobody was more
zealously devoted to magical arts than Nero, in order
that he might be able to command the gods, which he so
eagerly desired that he even offered human sacrifices to
them. (Nat. Hist. 30. 5). It is not however said that
the 'Lawless One' himself would work these signs, but
that men would be deceived by them to their own de-
struction. Paul had before his eyes Christ's prophecy ;
and the false prophet of the Apocalypse, the beast from
the earth, who by great wonders seduces men to worship
the beast from the sea (the emperor) is part of the same
id^a. Magical and theurgic acts were then as insepara-
ble from heathenism as the heresies which sprung from
heathen elements.

" The 'apostasy' which was to come first was the fall-
ing away from faith, the seductions of false doctrine,
which Paul elsewhere mentions, and which, after its en-
trance, occupied the apostles. How solemnly Paul tells
the Ephesians that after his departure, ravening wolves,
false teachers, will arise, as well from without as from
within the church, and lead the people astray! He meant
the Gnostic heretics whom he clearly described afterwards
in his epistles to Timothy, as apostates whose entrance

310 THE PAROUSIA.

in the latter times the spirit of prophecy 'expressly' fore-
told. ITim. 4: 1. They, by magical delusions, deceived
the credulous and gained them for themselves.* The
falling away Paul mentions cannot be one to be wrought
by the Man of Sin. Of him Paul only knew that he would
make himself a god, and put down or slight all other
gods. He could not mean that a great number of be-
lievers would fall away simply to flatter the pride of this
man-god and worship him. No sort of anxiety about an
apostasy to this crudest, almost insane, form of heathen-
ism is ever expressed throughout the whole New Testa-
ment, nor any warning given against it. Paul speaks of
a strong power of delusion working this result. But the
apotheosis of a despot could so little deceive that, as
Philo remarks, all except the Jews took part in the divine
adoration of Caligula, but purely out of terror and against
the grain. But here again, it is only the intimations of
Christ which the apostle follows. Matt. 24 : 23, seq.
He had connected a great deceiving with the period of
the abomination of desolation in the holy place, and so
also did Paul. The coming of the Lawless One would
coincide with the apostasy wrought by miracle-monger-
ing, false teachers, and magical signs. Two great judg-
ments were to come together, the profanation and fall of
the temple, and the delusion or falling away to Gnostic-
ism of many believers. This last evil the apostle regards
as a judgment on those 'who not having believed the
truth, take pleasure in unrighteousness ;' wherefore 'God
will send them a strong delusion that they may believe
the lie.' " Vol. 2, p. 268, et seq.

* The ancients call them satanical arts, and use the same word
as Paul. So Justin Martyr, of Simon. Apol. 2. So Eusebius
(3.36) of Menandcr. John of Damascus remarks (4: 26) that Paul
medins feigned miracles.

APPENDIX. . 311

QROTIUS ON THE MILLENNIUM, AND GOG AND MAGOG.

The following passages from the Commentary of the
learned Grotius were discovered after I had written the
sections relating to those topics, pp. 131 ; 137.

Rev. 20 : 1. — Aliud est visum, significans tranquillita-
tem quae ecclesiis per Constantinum erat primum data,
aucta per successores, fore quidam longam, non tamen
usque ad mundi interitum.

Verse 3. Mille illorum annorum initium duci debet ab
edicto Constantini, quod est apud Eusebium, in quo vincti
draconis est mentio.

Verse 4. Constantini edictum pro Christianismi liber-
tate datum fuit circa annum Christi 311. Mille post
annis orta est domus Ottomanica quae non in Persidem
aut oras Roman i imperii, sed in partes ejus intimas atque
potissimas in Asiam Grseciamque invexit Mahumetis
religionem Satana? repertum.

Verse 8. Hie ergo per Gogum intelligenda domus
Ottomanica, quae primum in ea parte Asiae se ostendit.*

^Kev. 20:1. Another vision was seen, signifying that the
tranquillity which was first bestowed by Constantine and aug-
mented by his successors would last a long time, but not until
the destruction of the world.

3. The beginning of the thousand years should be reckoned
from the edict of Constantine related by Eusebius, in which
mention is made of the bound dragon.

4. The edict of Constantine for the freedom of Christianity
was issued about A. D. 311. A thousand years after this the
Ottoman dynasty arose, which carried the religion of Moham-
med, shown to be the religion of Satan, not only into Persia and
the extremities of the Roman Empire, but also into its most
central and powerful parts, Asia and Greece.

8. Here, therefore, by Gog is to be understood the Ottoman
family, wjiich first showed itself in that part of Asia.

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